John Cryan: Deutsche Bank boss queries bonuses by asking ‘I wonder what drives people’

Mr Cryan's own pay package is yet to be revealed

Deutsche Bank co-Chairman John Cryan speaks to the media at Deutsche Bank headquarters on October 29, 2015 in Frankfurt, Germany. (Getty)

Deutsche Bank’s new boss has questioned the need to pay bankers, including himself, bonuses, adding that people in the financial services industry are already paid too much.

John Cryan, who became chief executive of Deutsche five months ago, said: “I sit on trading floors and wonder what drives people. I don’t fully empathise with anyone who says they turn up to work and work harder because they can be paid a little bit more, but that may be a personal view. I’ve never been able to understand the way additional excess riches drive people to be- have differently.”

While his own pay package is yet to be revealed, Mr Cryan added: “I have no idea why I was offered a contract with a bonus in it, because I promise you – I will not work any harder or any less hard in any year, in any day, because someone is going to pay me more or less.”

Mr Cryan, who is cutting 9,000 staff at Deutsche, said many bankers still get paid too much for what they do.

“Many people in the sector still believe they should be paid entrepreneurial wages for turning up to work with a regular salary, a pension and probably a healthcare scheme and playing with other people’s money,” he told a conference in Frankfurt. “There doesn’t seem to be anything entrepreneurial about that except the compensation structures.”

Mr Cryan recently warned Deutsche staff – including more than 8,000 in the City of London, where its investment banking operation is based – that many of their bonuses would “go to zero” this year. Around 1,000 of the job cuts are expected to fall on London. Another 15,000 staff will in effect depart with the spin-off of its German retail bank Postbank.

Last month Deutsche warned it would post a €6bn (£4.2bn) loss for the third quarter after it booked €6.4bn of writedowns on its investment bank and other businesses. It also set aside €1.2bn for legal costs.

Deutsche paid out €2.7bn in bonuses last year.