A survey gets answers to the question: where are the biggest pay gaps in banks?

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan may not always draw the most flattering of headlines but it appears that, based on at least one survey, they are the most generous when measured for the salary paid to junior employees, according to the online remuneration website Emolument.com. Data was based on figures for 2014.

The website, which analysed salaries and bonuses from 1,211 front-office analysts in years one to three (junior bankers) working in Europe and the US, found that, for example, Goldman Sachs’s CEO income was $24 million, with average analyst income of $110,000, a ratio of 1/218. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley’s CEO received $22.5 million, giving a ratio of 1/205, and at JP Morgan, the CEO earned $20 million, giving a ratio of 1/180.

At Deutsche Bank, analysts are on an average salary of $114,000 – the highest figure among the banks that emolument.com reported on, while the CEOs (there were two CEOs in 2014, a situation that is about to change), on $7 million.

"Pay at top banks is elastic for CEOs: when raising CEO pay, analyst packages can stay where they are, as those banks already pay top dollar in the junior market. On the other hand, if Santander were to match Goldman's analysts/CEO pay ratio, it would bring analyst pay down to $25,000, which would definitely exclude it from attracting talent. Banks like Santander are stuck with narrower analyst/CEO pay gaps, and not necessarily out of choice,” Alice Leguay, from Emolument.com, said.

Among other banks, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s CEO was on $13 million, with a ratio to junior employee average pay of 1/21; HSBC ($11.8 million, 1/126); UBS ($11.1 million, 1/104); Credit Suisse ($10.2, 1/97); Barclays ($8.55 million, 1/86), and Santander ($5.4 million, 1/67).

The survey came out a day after UK financial regulators issued new, tougher rules on bankers’ pay and bonuses in a bid, they said, to avoid dangerous risk-taking behaviour in future.

Emolument.com was launched in 2012 as, it says on its press literature, “the only real-time bonus & salary benchmarking site dedicated to finance and other professional services industries”. It draws more than 52,000 contributions from individuals at over 18,500 institutions. Emolument.com crowdsources salary and bonus data directly from individual professionals who contribute anonymously. To see a previous survey by the organisation around the issue of MBA programmes and pay, click here.