Finance bonuses since 2007 set to hit £100bn

BONUSES paid out to financial sector workers since the start of the 2007 crisis are likely to break through the £100 billion barrier this year, campaigners said today.

Bonuses: Antonio HortaOsorio. Picture: Getty

The revised total from the Robin Hood Tax campaign comes as the big banks gear up to report their 2014 full-year results, triggering fresh bonus payouts and stoking public anger.

Today’s report is based on analysis of Office for National Statistics data which shows that bonuses paid out in the financial sector – including insurers – since the start of the crisis in October 2007 have already reached £91bn.

By the end of the 2014-15 financial year, this figure is likely to have surpassed the £100bn mark, the campaign noted. It is continuing to press the UK government to introduce a financial transactions tax – in line with a number of other countries.

David Hillman, spokesperson for the Robin Hood Tax campaign, said: “This eye-popping sum is evidence we live in a two-tier Britain where an unreformed financial sector continues to pocket huge rewards while the rest of us are left to clear up their mess.

“We’ve given the Square Mile far too long a leash – the result has been a sector that feathers its own nest despite being embroiled in one scandal after another.

“Our softly-softly approach to the City clearly has not worked – it’s time we tackled this bloated sector by ensuring they pay more tax.”

The campaign – a coalition of 119 organisations including Barnardo’s, Comic Relief, Friends of the Earth, Stamp Out Poverty and the TUC – argued that bonus figures were inflated not by ordinary bank staff, but by a “small number of investment bankers”.

Anger over bonuses is likely to be reignited this week when Lloyds outlines the multi-million-pound awards due to its chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio.

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