Compliancex

Royal Bank of Scotland’s CEO Stephen Hester will be getting a lot less in his bonus check this year, as the bank announced Thursday that his bonus has been reduced to half of what he received last year.

That comes out to $1.5 million, per New York Times DealBook, so he’s not exactly going to be broke.

Hester, who took over the position at the UK’s largest state-controlled bank in 2008, has come under criticism for not only cutting thousands of jobs (3,500 expected) but also for the huge drop in the bank’s shares — 38% down over the past year. Per the Wall Street Journal, the bank says it is rewarding Hester for “returning most businesses to profitability.”

RBS is 82% owned by British taxpayers and has been under pressure from Prime Minister David Cameron to crack down on enormous executive bonuses.

Obviously, they did not take the lead set by Lloyds Banking Group chief executive António Horta-Osório, who actually gave up his bonus entirely, but they did slice it significantly.

Hester’s bonus will be paid in shares redeemable in 2014.

Daryn Strauss is a contributing writer for CompliancEX and Wall Street Job Report. She is a 2012 Writers Guild Award Nominee, Outstanding Achievement in Writing Original New Media and is the Creative Director & Founder, Digital Chick TV (www.digitalchicktv.com), Writer/Director/Executive Producer of Downsized (www.downsizedthewebseries.com), www.darynstrauss.com
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