Banks spend N6.1 billion on CEOs, others in 2016

• Six CEOs get N598 million as annual salary

By Odunewu Segun

While ordinary workers in the country are begging the government to increase National Minimum wage from N18, 000 to N56, 000, investigation has shown that a total of about N6.1bn was paid to ten banks CEOs and other executives as compensation for the financial ended December, 2016.

The data which was gotten from the annual report of these banks also showed that CEOs of six of the banks carted home N598 million as annual salaries alone in 2016.

National Daily gathered that FBNH, which includes First Bank, FBN Insurance, FBN Capital among other financial services business topped the pack with total executive compensation with about N1.4 billion in 2016.

Union Bank, sold by AMCON to Atlas Mara, a foreign entity few years bank came second with N7363 million.

Of the big 5 banks, National Daily gathered that Zenith comes last with about N403 million as executive compensation. Surprisingly, Diamond Bank had the least amount spent on executive compensation with just N88 million reported for the year.

Stanbic IBTC reported a 36% drop in its executive compensation, from about N800 million in 2015 to N515 million in 2016. Fidelity Bank also reported a 21% year on year drop in executive compensation to N273 million.

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FCMB on the other hand, increased its executive compensation by 7.5% to N574 million, while UBA reported the highest increase in executive compensation to N645 million, representing an 18% rise.

National Daily also gathered in 2016, GT Bank CEO, Segun Agbaje, was paid the highest salary with about N204 million annually. He also topped the list in 2015 with about N205 million paid.

Union Bank CEO, Emeka Emuwa, who was poached from Citi Bank, was paid N166 million in 2016. Zenith Bank and Access Bank, which both form the quintet of largest banks in Nigeria paid about N88 million and N85 million respectively.

Diamond Bank CEO is paid the least with about N34 million as emoluments. He also got the highest bump in salary with a 33% increase year on year.

FBNH increased its CEO’s pay by about 16.7% to N105 million

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The ten banks in view incurred a total of N442 billion in personnel cost compared to N412 billion in 2015. This represents an increase of about 7.3% year on year. The banks under review also reported a gross earnings of about N3 trillion.