Bank bosses get huge pay rises in sign top City salaries back to pre-crash highs

Nat West CEO’s £6.6m pay package for 2025 is largest for group since disgraced Fred Goodwin’s £7.7m in 2006

A trio of bank bosses have been given huge pay packets in the latest sign that the vast salaries and bonuses handed to Wall Street and City of London executives in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis have started to return.

NatWest on Friday revealed a £6.6m pay package for its boss Paul Thwaite, marking the largest payout for a chief executive of the banking group since his disgraced predecessor Fred Goodwin took home £7.7m in 2006.

That was 33% higher than his £4.9m pay package for 2024. It also surpassed the £5.2m received by his predecessor Alison Rose for 2022, who Thwaite replaced in 2023 after the group’s row with Nigel Farage over what the Reform leader said was the discriminatory closure of his accounts. It means Thwaite is the highest-earning chief executive of the group since Goodwin, who was later blamed for bringing the bank to its knees, requiring a £45bn government bailout during the banking crisis in 2008. The government sold its final shares in NatWest in May.

Details of Thwaite’s pay deal came hours after the US lender Citigroup announced that its chief executive, Jane Fraser, had been paid a record $42m (£31m) for 2025. That included a $1.5m base salary and a $40.5m bonus, helping push her overall pay up by almost a quarter from $34.5m a year earlier.

Lloyds Banking Group also announced it had given its chief executive, Charlie Nunn, a 20% rise in pay for 2025 to £7.4m, which included £4.4m in bonuses. That was the highest sum in a decade. The bank – which received a £20.3bn state bailout in 2008 after taking over the struggling rival Halifax Bank of Scotland – last handed a higher sum to the former boss António Hora-Osório in 2015, then worth £8.7m. Lloyds returned to private hands in 2017.

Asked whether it was appropriate for his own pay to be returning to pre-financial crisis levels, Thwaite told reporters he was very proud of what NatWest had achieved over the past couple of years. “The first thing I’d say is that I recognise that senior roles in financial services, in banking and actually in wider professional services, are very well paid. I appreciate that. I know that; I believe I’m very fortunate, and it would be churlish for me to suggest otherwise.”

He added: “The exec pay policy is set by the board. It’s voted on by shareholders. There’s obviously a very close link between reward and performance. And it goes up and down depending upon performance. So that’s all I’ll say on that, really.”

Thwaite’s earning power was not only bolstered by the bank’s privatisation but also by a decision last year to lift the banker bonus cap that had limited his bonus to twice his salary. It followed a UK-wide reversal of the cap as part of post-Brexit powers that politicians, including the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and regulators hoped would lure more high-earning bankers to Britain’s shores.

Lloyds is following suit, proposing a new pay policy for Nunn this year, which could result in him earning up to £17.7m if share prices continue to climb.

On top of Thwaite’s £1.1m salary, a “fixed share allowance” of £1.1m, and pension payments and other benefits, Thwaite was given a £4m bonus. That included an annual bonus of £1.5m, up 68% from £890m a year earlier. The rest was linked to a long-term bonus scheme, which paid out £2.5m for 2025.

The jump came as NatWest reported £7.7bn in pre-tax profits for 2025, a 24% rise on the £6.2bn reported a year earlier.

The lender also increased payouts for its top bankers, lifting the group bonus pool by 10.8% to £495m, according to its newly released annual report on Friday. That is the highest level since 2013, when the financial crisis bonus pool still hovered at about £576m.

NatWest’s annual report also disclosed that 89 “material risk takers” earned more than €1m (£870,000) in 2025.

The bank said 20 of these earned between €1.5m and €2m, while 14 earned more than €2m. The lender employed 59,000 permanent staff in total at the end of last year.

Lloyds announced a £405m bonus pool, its highest since 2023, while its UK rival Barclays has also given bankers the largest bonus pool in 12 years. It revealed its bankers would be sharing £2.2bn worth of bonuses for the 2025 financial year, marking a 15% increase from £1.9bn last year. It comes after Barclays revealed a 13% rise in full-year profits on Tuesday to £9.1bn.