Top bank bosses enjoyed a £29m pay bonanza even as they axed more than 300 branches last year.
The chief executives of Lloyds, NatWest and Barclays are reaping the biggest rewards seen in years as their profits surge, figures this week revealed.
But the bumper pay packets, which came as the lenders continued to take the axe to their High Street networks, have sparked anger.
Yesterday, Lloyds Banking Group – which includes Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland – revealed that boss Charlie Nunn was paid £7.4m in 2025, up from £6.2m in 2024.
It makes him the highest-earning chief executive at Lloyds since 2015, and comes after the group last month posted a 12 per cent rise in profits to £6.7billion in 2025.
Figures from consumer group Which? show Lloyds shut 218 branches last year. It has a further 158 closures planned or already completed in 2026.
Banks have been cutting branches as customers increasingly go online, but campaigners say this leaves vulnerable and elderly people in the lurch.
Meanwhile, NatWest’s chief executive Paul Thwaite landed the largest payout at the bank since Stephen Hester earned £7.7m in 2010.
Thwaite saw his annual package leap by a third to £6.6m last year as the lender posted bumper profits, the bank’s annual report revealed yesterday. At the same time, the bank shut 105 local branches, with a further 30 either planned or already completed this year.
Thwaite, who led the lender to full private ownership last year following its £45bn bailout during the financial crisis, admitted he was ‘very well paid’.
He said: ‘I’m very fortunate, and it would be churlish of me to suggest otherwise.’
But he said there was ‘a very close link between pay and performance’. NatWest said Thwaite’s pay rise followed the delivery of ‘strong results and share price growth’, as it revealed a 25 per cent jump in profits last year to £7.7billion, driven by its private banking and wealth division.
Earlier in the week, Barclays said it had awarded chief executive CS Venkatakrishnan a pay package worth more than £15m, up from £11.6m in 2024. It closed six bank branches last year but has pledged to announce no new closures this year.
Andrew Speke, interim director of campaign group the High Pay Centre, said: ‘The sums are not only significantly higher than the average FTSE 100 chief executive, but also represent substantial increases from just a year ago, far exceeding inflation or wage growth in the wider economy.’
He said ‘this remains typical within a broken executive pay model’, adding: ‘It is hard to believe that all three have performed so exceptionally in the past year to justify such rises.
‘If the Government wants to regain public trust and demonstrate it prioritises the wider public over big business, it should take action to curb runaway executive pay.’
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