Paul Myners, financial services secretary to the U.K. Treasury, has written to the chief investment officers of some of Britain's biggest financial institutions urging them to hold banks to account over their bonus policies, the Treasury said.
Myners said in the letter that more than 30 pension funds and other such investors should use the stakes they own in banks to force greater transparency over compensation, the Treasury said. Myners wants profit earned largely through government support programs to be kept on bank balance sheets or paid to investors rather than to managers.
"Asymmetrical remuneration policies, tilted in favor of risk, might be good for traders," Myners said in the letter. "But they are not good for customers, employees, creditors and owners of banks — or the taxpayer."
