Bank chiefs told: Hand back your £143m in bonuses

MPs, consumer groups and shareholders said there was mounting anger at the vast scale of the performance-related payments pocketed by directors of the big five - now four - banks in recent years.

Analysis by the Evening Standard reveals that £143million in bonuses has been handed over to bank directors since 2003 - the year that concerns about "irresponsible lending" first began to be widely aired.

These are on top of base salaries, option payments and other perks such as final-salary pensions and are, in principle, awarded only if they have done their job particularly well. Bonus levels are set by committees of fellow bank directors.

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said: "As a basic moral and philosophical position it has to be right that the bonuses are refunded. Whether it can be enforced practically is another matter."

Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said: "The Government should use its various controlling stakes in the banks to commence legal action to get repayment of these bonuses ,which were paid under false pretences."

Eddie Weatherill, of the Independent Bank Advisory Service, said: "The banks have clearly made excess profits over the years and have dreamed up better and better schemes to pay themselves bigger and bigger bonuses until the bubble burst."

The biggest single beneficiary has been the head of Barclays Capital, Bob Diamond, who has been awarded £21.3million in bonuses since 2005.

In 2007 just 28 executive directors shared almost £35million of bonuses for their performance in a year when the first tremors of the financial earthquake were already being felt.

One leading City investor said the banks' current directors should be "sent packing" if they expected any bonuses for 2008.

The demands come after another traumatic two days for the banking industry with shares in Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds - now owner of HBOS - Barclays and to a lesser extent HSBC taking huge tumbles.

Since they peaked in the summer of 2007 more than £200billion has been wiped from the value of Britain's high street banks and two - RBS and Lloyds Banking Group - have had to be rescued with huge injections of government money.

The banks' accounts reveal that bonuses have mushroomed as gambles authorised by directors have became more serious.

In 2003 executive directors at RBS received bonuses of £4million, including £990,000 for chief executive Fred Goodwin. By 2007 this had more than doubled to £9.2million, including £2.86million for Sir Fred.

At HBOS the highest bonus in 2003 was the £737,000 paid to chief executive James Crosby, now a government adviser. But in 2007 director Peter Cummings, who was responsible for much of the high-risk lending that helped land the bank in trouble, received almost £1.8million.

There are few precedents for bonuses being handed back but Swiss bank UBS has introduced the concept of a "malus" payment - a negative bonus - as a way of clawing back money from underachievers.

Under City guidelines, drawn up by the Association of British Insurers, company remuneration committees are entitled to ask for money back "if the performance achievements are subsequently found to have been significantly misstated".

A spokeswoman for the British Bankers' Association said: "We have always said that remuneration should be looked at by the remuneration committees of the banks and if shareholders are unhappy about that they should take it up at the AGM."

Barclays said Bob Diamond should not have to hand back his most recent bonus.

A spokesman said: "Barclays' strong performance in 2007 and previous years is a matter of public record. Remuneration at Barclays is based on performance."

A Lloyds TSB spokesman said: "Lloyds TSB has delivered significant profits generation for its shareholders for a sustained period of time.

"The Group has stretching performance targets and bonuses are only paid when they are met."

An HBOS spokesman said: "The HBOS executive remuneration scheme included a number of stretching performance targets that had to be met before bonuses were paid. The company's guidelines are very much in line with those of the ABI."

An HSBC spokesman said: "Executive bonuses are determined by our independent remuneration committee based on a range of performance measures.".

RBS declined to comment.