Deutsche Bank boss John Cryan: bankers are paid too much

Deutsche Bank’s new boss has questioned the need to pay bankers, including himself, bonuses, adding that people in financial services are already paid too much.

John Cryan, who became chief executive of Deutsche five months ago, said: “I sit on trading floors and wonder what drives people. I don’t fully empathise with anyone who says they turn up to work and work harder because they can be paid a little bit more, but that may be a personal view.

“I’ve never been able to understand the way additional excess riches drive people to behave differently.”

While his own pay package is yet to be revealed, he added: “I have no idea why I was offered a contract with a bonus in it because I promise you I will not work any harder or any less hard in any year, in any day because someone is going to pay me more or less.”

Cryan, who is axing 9000 staff at the bank, said plenty of bankers still get paid too much for what they do.

“Many people in the sector still believe they should be paid entrepreneurial wages for turning up to work with a regular salary, a pension and probably a healthcare scheme and playing with other people’s money,” he told a conference in Frankfurt.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything entrepreneurial about that except the compensation structures.”