Executive pay for all companies, albeit mainly banks, is a controversial and heated subject, as we all know. I suppose the notion of whether they are "deserved" is a subjective one.
The PR disaster for RBShas no doubt pushed the bank to relook at its bonus structure, other banks are slashing bonuses for the majority of workers, and some CEOs have foregone a bumper extra pay packet, without as much prompting as others.
However, as a quick point of interest, Euromoney stumbled across a chart that was recently featured on The Economist website(and derived from financial research company Obermatt), which sought to place CEOs of S&P-listed companies into an overpaid and underpaid table – which, one would assume, would be a hard and fast way to illustrate bonuses that do not necessarily correlate to performance or market capitalisation:
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Of course, bank CEOs are mixed in with tech, energy and media companies, but the source of comparison is intriguing. Plus, despite the furore over bankers bonuses, it is interesting to see Vikram Pandit listed as one of the top "underpaid" CEOs– despite the disappointing set of recent results.