HSBC’s business and markets run by Stuart Gulliver, received £15.3 million. He is the bank's top paid employee, and the head of global markets Samir Asaf, received a bonus more than £9 million.

A taxable payment declared by the a company’s board of directors for the 28,000 staff working in banking and markets came in at £110,000, which is quite less than the investment banking operations of competitors Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, which complete average payment of £191,000 and £175,000 respectively.

The Chairperson of HSBC, Stephen Green had ignored an annual bonus as early as 2007 and revealed that it was in public interest that the bank should give staff what they needed to execute efficiently.

Group pre-tax earnings at HSBC decline by almost a quarter to £4.7 billion due to bad debt costs. The personal financial services business suffered a loss of £1.4 billion largely on the back of impairment expenses from the US Household Finance business, which had a loss of £3.5 billion before tax.

Five men were paid almost £40 million, though it will be delayed for a three-year period in sequence with HSBC's compensation policy.