Shamed HSBC’s £70m pay and bonus for Swiss staff over just three years: Private bank increased payouts by 40% in 2013
Key staff at bank given £21m in salaries and bonuses in 2011 and 2012
But figure jumped almost 40% to £29.2m in 2013, financial reports say
Bank is accused of helping customers to cheat taxman out of millions
Admits failings in compliance & controls in Swiss private banking wing
Staff at the private bank at the centre of the HSBC tax scandal were given £70million in pay and bonuses in three years, it was revealed yesterday.
HSBC’s private banking unit in Switzerland increased payouts for key managers and officials by almost 40 per cent in 2013, before the true extent of the offshore tax scandal was revealed.
Britain’s biggest bank refused to say how many staff were covered by the £70million paid out between 2011 and 2013 – after data from thousands of its customers’ accounts was passed to the UK taxman for investigation.
Its chief executive Stuart Gulliver apologised to customers and investors in a series of full-page newspaper advertisements yesterday and said the private bank had been ‘completely overhauled’.
Business Secretary Vince Cable said Britain still needed ‘a proper explanation’ for the offshore banking scandal and called on the bank’s ex-c
Lord Green was on the board of the Swiss banking unit for a decade and reportedly avoided a tax charge of up to £2.3million on a £5.8million pension pot under a scheme set up by the bank.
He was appointed as a trade minister in 2011 – after HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) revealed it was examining data related to tax evasion by HSBC’s private customers – and both he and David Cameron have refused to answer whether they discussed the issue before his appointment.
Mr Cable told Sky News: ‘[Lord Green] hasn’t yet spoken on his role in the matter and I would certainly like him to do so.’
HSBC faces investigations by financial authorities in Britain and the US and its chairman Douglas Flint will face questions from MPs later this month.
The Treasury select committee is then expected to discuss if it should call Lord Green, an ordained Church of England priest, to give evidence.
He left the bank in 2010 when his pension pot stood at £19million, one of the biggest boardroom pensions in the private sector, according to the Sunday Times.
In 2006, when the Government introduced a £1.5million limit on the tax breaks for pensions, he quit the bank’s pension scheme and could claim enhanced protection for his pension pot and avoid the new taxes.
An unregistered employer-funded retirement benefits scheme was then set up which was not subject to the new penalties, the Sunday Times reported.
HSBC has described the arrangement as prudent tax mitigation and there is no suggestion it was illegal tax evasion.
Lord Green was vetted by the House of Lords appointment commission before he was made a life peer and HMRC confirmed his personal tax affairs were in order.
Business Secretary Vince Cable
He has refused to comment on the HSBC tax row but announced this weekend that he was standing down as chairman of financial lobby group TheCityUK.
Meanwhile senior tax officials at HMRC were revealed to have shared bonuses of around £250,000 since they were handed
the HSBC Suisse files in 2010.
The tax authority has been criticised for failing to pursue tax evaders after it emerged that only one person from the files has been convicted, although HMRC says it has recouped £135million in unpaid taxes and fines.
The 20 performance-related payments included two bonuses of £20,000 to HMRC chief executive Lin Homer, on top of her £185,000-a-year salary.
