Bank reveals its bonus scheme, with pay-outs averaging £230,000

BANKERs at Wall Street giant JP Morgan Chase will receive average pay and bonus packages of more than £230,000 - slightly down on last year - after a stronger-than expected final quarter of the year.

• Jamie Dimon

Although annual payouts per employee in the group's investment-banking unit, which employs some 8,000 in London, will fall by 2.4 per cent from a year ago the total pay bill will rise by 4 per cent as staff numbers grew during 2101 by 1,660.

JP Morgan declined to reveal how much had been set aside specifically for its year-end bonus pool as part of the total sum, but said that performance-related pay was higher than in 2009.

It plans to reveal handouts to its staff in the next few weeks.

The bank is the first of the big US players to report during the annual results season, with results from Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America due next week.

Overall, JP Morgan made net earnings, or profit, of $4.8 billion (3.02bn) for the final three months of last year, up 47 per cent.

For the full calendar year, it posted net earnings of $17.4bn on revenues of $104.8bn, almost 50 per cent higher than a year earlier.

The investment banking arm saw a 4 per cent drop in profits with turnover 7 per cent lower but the retail financial service division and its credit card arm both returned to profit in the last quarter. Chairman and chief executive Jamie Dimon admitted that the ongoing crisis in the US housing market was causing problems but said that the company had enjoyed a "solid" year.

"Although we continue to face challenges, there are signs of stability and growth returning to both the global capital markets and the US economy," he said.

Shares in JP Morgan, the second-largest banking group in the US, rose as much as 3 per cent in early trading to a nine-month high.

But the bank's pay figures prompted an angry response from UK poverty campaigners

David Hillman, spokesman for the Robin Hood Tax campaign for financial sector taxes, said the pay and bonus figures were "outrageous".

"While bankers wallow in cash, the general public are suffering unemployment and cuts to public services," he said.

"If banks can afford to pay billions in bonuses, they can clearly afford to be taxed a great deal more. A 20bn Robin Hood Tax in the UK would help avoid the worst of the cuts and show we are all in this together."

It is feared big bonus payouts from US banks will prompt UK counterparts to follow suit, with concerns that government attempts to rein in British banker handouts are failing.

JP Morgan is the only major Wall Street firm to have made profits in every quarter, even in the recession.