The head of the British parliament's Work and Pensions Committee has written to Standard Chartered's remuneration committee questioning the bank's executive pension pay level.
Frank Field, chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee on Thursday wrote a letter asking why the bank's remuneration committee put forward a proposal where the existing directors would receive 40 percent of base salary (20 percent of total salary) as the pension contribution whereas new executive directors would receive up to 10 percent of total salary as contribution.
The letter, made public on Monday, also questioned whether the remuneration committee supported the Investment Association's guideline that pension contribution rates for executive directors should be aligned with that of their workforce, newswire «Reuters» reported. It further asked if the remuneration committee planned to revisit the executive pay policy next year.
«Immature» Investors
The British bank, which draws about two-thirds of operating income from Asia in 2018, has frustrated investors in recent days due to failure in putting a lid on pension contributions as a percentage of base salary. Instead, the bank has calculated it against a bigger total salary base, which includes fixed-pay allowances paid in share as well as cash.
Last Tuesday, Stancart's chief executive Bill Winters called investors «immature» after some 36 percent of them voted against the bank's 2019 directors' remuneration policy which has laid out plans to increase Winters' pension allowance among other measures, the «Financial Times» (behind paywall) reported. In a separate article on Sunday, the newspaper that the bank is now considering to ask Winters to take a pay cut.
