JPMorgan tops list of best paying banks – but only if you’re a manager

The US bank's London office pays its managing directors a median £919,463

JP Morgan got the worse score for fairness as its managing director salary was more than £800,000 superior to its associate salary at £105,000 (Peter Macdiarmid / Getty)

JPMorgan has topped a list of the best paying UK-based banks – but only if you’re a manager.

The US bank’s London office pays its managing directors a median £919,463 salary. That’s 35 per cent more than its closest rival, Morgan Stanley, where managers get a median of £682,525 per year.

But JP Morgan did not offer the best salary for associates, according to research by Emolument.com, a salary benchmarking site that analysed 1,4333 salaries from managing directors and associates in London to create a league table of the best paying banks.

JP Morgan got the worst score for fairness as its managing director salary was more than £800,000 superior to its associate salary at £105,000.

Executive pay has been in the spotlight recently after Britain’s high profile bosses called for companies to restore confidence in a system that is seen as “broken”.

Deutsche Bank’s investors voted down a pay package for chief executives after the bank made a €6.8 billion (£5.2bn) loss last year. The vote followed previous pay rebellions at Citygroup and Renault.

The Emolument data found that top managers at Deutsche Bank received average compensation of £675,000, despite the fact that the bank has recently announced it is cutting its bonus pool by €2.41 billion (£1.88 billion) after posting its first annual loss since 2008. The bank ranked 14th on Emolument fairness scale.

Credit Agricole was ranked as the bank with lowest pay package of £200,000 for managing directors.

Societe Generale, Credit Agricole, Commerzbank and Credit Suisse, which has the lowest MDs salaries, scored highly for fairness.

The era of big bonuses might soon be coming to an end. A report by the accountants Deloitte said “two in five FTSE 100 CEOs received a salary freeze this year” and talked of “continued restraint” by boards.

Richard Pennycook, chief executive of the Co-op group, has surprisingly asked for his pay packet to be cut by 60 per cent having seen the first signs of success with his turnaround of the food-to-funerals conglomerate.

Salaries and bonuses at 18 banks ranked from best to worst