Big cash payments coming at RBS in June; why London bankers deserve MORE than everyone else

Following on from the recent theme of generous deferrals at RBS, we now have colour on precisely how much cash is coming to its investment bankers in a few months' time.

RBS hasn't confirmed this, but according to headhunters, there's a complex system in place for bonuses, under which:

- The first 2k is paid in cash in March

- A further 23k is paid in cash in June

- Of the next 75k, 80% (60k) is paid in cash in June; 20% is deferred.

As a result, an RBS banker earning 100k can apparently expect a deferral of just 15%, making the bank very competitive compared to the likes of Credit Suisse, where 35% of payments above 33k are deferred this year/

Beyond 100k, the level of deferrals allegedly increases fairly dramatically, with 40% of bonuses between 100k and 500k deferred over three years and 60% of bonuses above 500k deferred over thee years.

At Morgan Stanley, 80% of bonuses for senior staff are deferred.

The deep unfairness of being paid less in London

Separately, it has emerged that HSBC is paying its investment bankers less in London than elsewhere.

The average bonus allocated to its 'code staff' as defined by the FSA was 824k last year. However, in London, this fell to 570k.

Stuart Gulliver attributed this to intense competition for staff in Asia.

This doesn't seem totally fair given that a) income tax is far higher in London and b) bankers in London are expected to work far harder. Gulliver himself recently cited the British time zone as a central reason for staying in the UK.

A corollary of this is that bankers in London are expected to start early to deal with Asia and to stay late to deal with the US. Surely they deserve more than everyone else as a result? Until last month, the Singapore stock exchange still had a lunch break after all.