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Published on April 1, 2008

Things are not quite the same since the US sub-prime meltdown began last year.

Financial institutions in Asia, though less developed, are actually paying a bit better when compared to many places in more developed markets.

Traders in London's financial district have seen their salaries and bonus payments plunge by as much as 40 per cent amid worsening credit conditions, according to recruitment firm Napier Scott Executive Search.

"The biggest falls in the UK occurred in the debt and credit markets," Napier chief executive Shaun Springer said in a statement quoted by Bloomberg yesterday.

A managing director with more than nine years' experience and working in exotic credit derivatives trading is currently paid as much as £685,000 (Bt43 million), down £290,000 from last year.

The collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market in the US and the ensuing credit contraction have saddled the world's largest financial institutions with at least US$200 billion (Bt64 trillion) of write-downs and losses.

Bear Stearns, once the fifth-biggest US securities firm, was forced to submit to an emergency take-over backed by the Federal Reserve two weeks ago as clients and lenders deserted the company.

In the UK, Northern Rock Plc was nationalised after becoming the first British bank to suffer a run on its deposits in 140 years.

Still, financial workers in New York have seen even bigger salary cuts than their UK counterparts, with an average 60 per cent decline in certain areas, according to London-based Napier.

Wall Street banks have cut more than 34,000 jobs in the past nine months, the most since the dot-com boom fizzled in 2001.

Asia now receives the highest average pay packages in the world, with a managing director in exotic credit trading receiving £1.48 million a year, Napier said.

"This was due to intense competition for talent and the Asia region being relatively less battered by the credit crisis," Springer said.

The Middle East had the highest percentage rise in remuneration for the second successive year, with packages increasing as much as 20 per cent.

The Nation