Greedy Bankers Still Don't Get It: Bonus Culture Returns with a Vengeance as, Five Years After the Crash, 2,700 British Bankers Pocket an Average of £1.6Million

MAIL ONLINE: The figure make's Britain's financial elite the highest paid in Europe / These bankers also had pension packages worth at least £830,000 / Average workers saw wages rise by a minuscule 0.8 per cent last year / Flies in the face of the banks' repeated claims they have scaled down pay

The astonishing greed of bankers was laid bare last night as it was revealed their salaries soared by more than a third last year.

While the rest of the nation coped with an unprecedented squeeze on incomes, City workers were enjoying the high life, with the top 2,700 taking home an average of £1.6million each.

The figure – which makes Britain’s financial elite the highest paid in Europe – flies in the face of the banks’ repeated claims that they have scaled down enormous pay rewards in the wake of the financial crisis.

Last night there were claims that the sector had learned nothing from the greatest financial crash for decades – a crisis that their own greed and incompetence was in part to blame for. Read on and comment » | James Salmon | Friday, November 29, 2013