Bank Bonus Season is Underway

Bank Bonus Season is underway. Over the next 2 weeks RBS, Lloyds and HSBC will announce how much money they’ve made or lost and how much they’ll be paying out in bonuses.

This year the banks are competing to show who is listening to public opinion, who has reduced their bonus pool the most, or which top executive is ‘nobly’ waiving their bonus. Phillip Hammonds heroic decision to forgo his bonus and Barclays choice of ‘citizenship’ as the theme for their annual results are cases in point here.

A simmering of distrust and frustration with the banking system is now an ever-present feature in British society, one that periodically threatens to spill over into wider discontent. Bank bonus season is one of those moments. Bonuses are a lighting rod for public anger with a banking system that is no longer working for ordinary people.

There is clear injustice in a failed industry which is still explicitly or implicitly subsidized by the taxpayer, awarding a small elite of its workers multimillion ‘compensation’ packages (could there be a more revealing choice of word?) whilst the public face austerity cuts, a drop in real income and growing unemployment.

But the anger about bonuses taps into something deeper. The fact that big banks continue to pay big bonuses shows that the culture in the City still hasn’t changed - and the public have had enough.

The public recognize that the banking system is the railroad tracks on which our economy run, as such they have an irrefutable interest in ensuring it works in the interests of wider society. 

We need a banking system which fulfills its basic functions: connecting lenders and borrowers to provide credit households and businesses, keeping our money safe, and enabling us to make and receive payments. On at least two of these counts the banking system continues to fail us.

We need a different culture of banking. Relying on individual bankers to do the ‘noble thing’ isn’t sustainable or desirable and top down reform can only take us so far. We all have a stake in the banking system - as citizens, depositors, or as owners – and it’s up to us to make a change.

Bonuses aren’t the only problem with the current banking system by far, but they are a good reminder that our banking system is no longer serving our needs. We need something better.

By Moving Your Money to a local, mutual or ethical alternative you are not only supporting a banking system which better serves the needs of our society but you are sending a clear message to the big banks that it cannot be back to business as usual.

Join us and PLEDGE TO MOVE YOUR MONEY on the day your bank announces its bonuses: RBS (owns Natwest and Ulster ) – Thursday 23rd February; Lloyds (owns Halifax, BoS) – Friday 24th February; HSBC – Monday 27th February.

Planning on moving? Please email your story to contact@moveyourmoney.org.uk now! Come down to the RBS ‘Better Bailout’ – 8.45am, Feb 23rd. For further details and to start you own see here.