VietNamNet Bridge – While some commercial banks keep transparent in the issues relating to the income of the board of directors, at other banks, the pay to the key personnel is confidential.

Generally, the pay to the members of the board of directors would be declared at the end of year, with the information to be found in the finance reports, or at the nest years’ shareholders’ meetings of listed banks.

In previous years, the income of a CEO of a medium bank was 200-300 million dong a month. Some brilliant CEOs received much more, but the number of the CEOs was modest.

Eximbank and ACB are two of the banks which regularly expose the information about the income of the key personnel. The common thing of the two banks was that both of them reported losses from gold and foreign currency trading for the third quarter of the year.

Eximbank is one of the rare banks which make public--the income of the board of directors after every year of operation.

The 2010 annual report of the bank showed that in 2009, the bank spent 11.4 billion dong to pay to the board of directors which comprised of 10 members, which meant that every member received more than one billion dong, or 95 million dong a month.

In 2010, when the number of the board’s members increased to 12, the total pay increased to 16.2 billion dong, which meant that every member received 112 million dong a month.

The total pay to the board of directors of the bank was double in 2011, soaring to 24.7 billion dong. As such, every member got 2.7 billion dong in 2011, or 229 million dong a month.

As for ACB, the bank’s total income of the board of directors was 17.4 billion dong in 2011, or 4 billion dong higher than that in 2010. Each of the nine members of the board of directors earned 1.9 billion dong a year, or 160 million dong a month.

The board of management and supervision board received 10.8 billion dong in 2011, while it was 8.8 billion dong in 2010. Prior to that, the income of the board of director was more modest, at 9.3 billion dong.

Besides the monthly salaries, the members of the board of directors of ACB also received bonus shares, cars, insurance policies and healthcare services.

Some small banks also regularly expose the detailed information about the total income of their key personnel. In 2011, Navibank, for example, announced that every of them received one billion dong a year, or 80 million dong a month.

Declining to reveal the information about the income levels of leaders and officers in 2012, Deputy General Director of ACB Nguyen Thanh Toai said the national economy has experienced a very difficult year 2012, therefore, it would be understandable if the pay to them is lower than the previous years.

A banker in Hanoi frankly said that it is not the right time to be too demanding now, and that one would feel happy if he still can be on the post of CEO. 2012 was an unlucky year to many bankers, when a lot of high ranking executives were arrested, the bad debt increased, capital cost increased and profit decreased.

The banker has predicted that the income of CEOs would be kept secret, because the income levels would show the capability of the CEOs, which is always a “sensitive matter.”

Infonet