You will be very lucky to get another increase in your base salary this year
As the Financial Times reported many, many hours ago, Mercer has produced some research confirming what has been clear for a while: Europe is not the place to be if you want to receive a cash bonus with limited clawbacks and a short deferral.
This is interesting, but more interesting is the fact that Mercer has unearthed banks' inevitable intention of holding salaries constant in 2011.
Only 13% of Mercer's European financial services respondents told Mercer they planned to increase salaries in the next six months. In North America only 7% intended to. In Asia, no one did.
The research also revealed that banks classify hardly anyone as 'material risk takers.' The median number of material risk takers as a percentage of overall staff was just 0.8%.
As the FT points out, only a third of banks and insurers in the US pay deferred shares and when they do, they apply a three year vesting period. In Europe 80% of banks and insurers use deferred shares and vesting periods are as long as five years.
