Fed’s Dudley Wants to Reform Bank Pay

The Fed official overseeing Wall Street says things need to change, and if the industry’s risky culture isn’t turned around, it may be time to break up the big banks.

William Dudley’s proposal would overhaul the way bonuses are paid out to executives. He said it would also incentivize ethical behavior among lower-level bankers.

Dudley, president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, laid out his ideas at a workshop Monday involving officials from Wall Street’s largest banks, plus federal regulators. Representatives from the likes of JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Morgan Stanley (MS), Goldman Sachs (GS), Barclays (BCS) and Bank of America (BAC) were listed as participants.

If “bad behavior” continues, the banks would “need to be dramatically downsized and simplified,” he warned them. Dudley cited “ongoing occurrences of serious professional misbehavior, ethical lapses and compliance failures” that have led to over $100 billion in fines since 2008.
The cornerstone of his plan is barring bank management, including top executives, from cashing out bonuses before their firms take a hit from big losses or government fines.

Dudley proposed bonuses be promised but locked up and only paid out in full after 10 years. In the meantime, fines and major losses could be deducted from that amount.

via CNN

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza