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By Anjuli Davies
LONDON, March 31 (Reuters) - Four of Europe's majorinvestment banks have reduced their bonus awards by a thirdsince 2009, but deferred bonus payouts, which came in after thefinancial crisis, are on the wane, Barclays research analystssaid in a note on Thursday.
Bonus awards at Credit Suisse, UBS,Deutsche Bank and Barclays fell to 11billion euros ($12.53 billion) in 2015 from 16 billion euros in2009, or to 37 percent of base salaries from 72 percent,according to the research.
Big banker bonuses were blamed for encouraging risk-takingand contributing to the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Under aEuropean Union cap, bonuses cannot now exceed 100 percent ofbankers' fixed salary, or twice that amount with shareholderapproval.
But banks have topped up basic pay by awarding allowances tosenior staff and also increased fixed salaries in some cases.As a result, many shareholders have urged further pay cuts tohelp to improve returns at European banks, which are stillrestructuring to try to revive profitability.
Deferred pay also became commonplace soon after the crisisas regulators wanted to make sure bankers whose high-risk tradeswent sour would not be rewarded with cash bonuses. It alsoprovided a way for banks to push their bonus costs into thefuture.
But Barclays' research said that the proportion of bonusesthat are deferred, which was 39 percent in 2015, has beenfalling because pushing the expense into the future has becomean unwelcome accounting inflexibility.
Credit Suisse, for example, had to expense 1.1 billion Swissfrancs more in 2015 from previous years' deferred bonuses thanin the current year, equivalent to 9 percent of 2015 staffcosts, Barclays' research said.
The research also showed that among the big four, UBS hasbegun to buck the overall downtrend in bonus payments. The Swissbank has increased bonus awards in its investment bank insuccessive years from a nadir in 2011-12, when it announced arestructuring plan. Its bonus pool has risen to 3.2 billioneuros in 2015 from 2.1 billion in 2011, equating to 56 percentof base salaries from 37 percent.
Total investment banking revenues at UBS, Credit Suisse andDeutsche Bank have fallen a third to 30 billion euros in 2015from 45 billion euros in 2007, while costs have fallen to justover 20 billion euros from 30 billion euros, according toBarclays' research.
($1 = 0.8780 euros) (Reporting By Anjuli Davies. Editing by Jane Merriman)
