Santander bankers earning $9m shrunk in 2024
Santander’s 2024 results were good. If you asked the bank, it “exceeded all targets for the year”. If you asked its bankers, however, you might not have found the same show of satisfaction. Santander’s Pillar 3 report for 2024, which was only just released today, might show why.
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The bank had 178 “investment banking MRTs” in 2024. The title is a regulatory invention that encompasses both actual bankers and sales & trading professionals that either earn a lot of money (over €750k in Santander’s eyes) or whose activities have a material impact on the risk profile of the bank. Or both.
Santander’s 178 investment banking MRTs split a €150m bonus pool between themselves in 2024. That meant an average bonus of €842k ($914k), a tidy sum, but 9% less than the average bonus of €920k distributed in 2023. It was also less than the €897k average bonus paid in 2022.
Fixed compensation (AKA salaries) for Santander's MRTs rose, however, from an average of €490k in 2022, to €493k in 2023, and to €529k ($574k) in 2024. The average total compensation pay package for MRTs at the bank therefore went from €1.39m to €1.41m to €1.37m ($1.49m) over those three years, a decline of 3%.
That's only a small drop, but the highest earners may have been most disappointed. Santander paid nine people more than €8m ($8.7m) in 2023; only three people earned the same amount in 2024. Five people earned over €11m ($12m) in 2023. In 2024, there was only one. It's not clear whether this was a result of lapsing guaranteed bonuses paid to Credit Suisse hires.
Santander also showed no sign of scrapping the 2:1 bonus cap that's no longer mandated in London. It could yet do so at its AGM in 2025, but remain constrained as a European-regulated bank.
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