Swiss bank Credit Suisse will revamp the way it compensates employees, rewarding more in salaries and tying bonuses — paid in cash and stock but over longer periods of time — to the bank's long-term performance.
Tying compensation to bank indicators such as return on equity will give the institution the ability to yank back big bonuses when business is faltering, the New York Times reports.
“As far as we know, we are the first major bank to announce a compensation structure that is consistent with the best practices laid out at the recent G-20 summit,” Credit Suisse Chief Executive Officer Brady W. Dougan.
Credit Suisse bonuses will be split between cash and stock, with stock vesting over four years and cash paying out in three.
Many financial firms that have received government money to survive are ready to dole out millions after millions in fresh bonuses, which has prompted U.S. government criticism.
“I think it is just deeply offensive to so many people that these institutions — that were at the edge of the abyss, put the system at this point of vulnerability, caused enormous damage — are in a position where they are, or were, paying people that left them insulated from the consequences of those mistakes,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a Reuters report.
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