Nationalised ABN Amro increased the basic salary of its 100 most senior managers by 20% at the beginning of this year, the bank confirmed on Wednesday.

At the same time, performance-related pay was reduced from a maximum 100% of salary to 20%, the Financieele Dagblad reports.

The salary increase compensates senior staff for the bonuses limits which the government is bringing in from next year. Despite the increase, senior staff will earn an average of 5% to 10% less.

Talent

The pay increase is necessary to keep talented managers on board, CEO Gerrit Zalm said. ‘You have to remain competitive otherwise you will empty out. It is unavoidable,’ he told the paper in an interview.

Rabobank told the FD it had also compensated its executives – some 240 bankers – for the scrapping of bonuses but declined to say by how much.

ING said it had not adopted a generic pay rise. ‘In some cases, fixed salary has been increased but the general starting point was that total income must go down,’ a spokesman told the FD.