When I wirked for the NFC we had a bonus scheme that was based on departmental profits and paid 1/4ly, not in cash but in shares. We had an internal invoice system known as "Comp 23" and the simplest way of ensuring you hit the bonus target in any particular 1/4 was to issue a Comp 23 on the final day of that 1/4 and then issue a credit the following day. Of course it meant we then started the next 1/4 in a negative balance but that could always be made up, or seldomly meant we might miss bonus that 1/4.

The banks simply seem to have taken that to a stratospheric level.

How do you de-link the two? The riskier the trade the bigger the profit (if it comes off) so the higher the bonus.

How about a return to a simple salaried pay structure where the best traders / bankers are rewarded with a high basic salary in return for trading consistently and profitably? Pay rises (if any) to be made in relation to how the bank does overall not how individuals do in terms of profit that can be laid solely at their feet. Given they will be on high salaries anyway that should be reward enough for whatever profit they contribute.

All these stupidly high bonus do is reward a select few out of many thousands of employees and encourage the exact opposite of any kind of collective responsibility and sense of company identity. The few can milk the cash cow for a few years, walk away and hang the consequences. So IMO bonuses are just another symptom of the short term-ism that pervades society, politics and business these days. They need to be done away with completely IMO.