If Robert Benmosche thinks he has it tough, try being a deal maker in Europe. Bankers, traders and financiers not only face proposals to severely restrict their compensation, they also are getting a good old-fashioned scolding from one of Europe’s top financial regulators. “Now is not the time for tantrums,’’ European Union’s competition chief Neelie Kroes said on Thursday. “Now is the time for the banking industry to show some respect to its customers, investors and the people who are often funding it all – taxpayers.”
Wait, she wasn’t finished. “Too often bankers think they are better, smarter people who deserve different rules and different pay to everyone else,’’ added Kroes, who is nearing the end of her five-year term. “They can only think that if others let them.” Benmosche, the chief of American International Group who is being paid $10.5 million a year, may think the federal government is acting with too heavy of a hand in regulating AIG’s compensation, but Kroes makes U.S. regulators look easy. While Congress, the White House and Wall Street remain mired in a debate about the future of financial regulation – namely how to deal with banks that are too big to fail–Kroes has already broken up two of Europe’s biggest banks, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Lloyds Holding, in return for allowing a U.K. bail out of those institutions.
No comments:
Post a Comment