A French bank is giving traders Ikea & Primark vouchers for Christmas
BNP Paribas has had a pretty good as far as sales and trading revenues go. At the time of its third quarter results, it revealed a 30% year-on-year increase in fixed income trading revenues and a 25% increase in equities revenues in the first nine months. This might be why BNP is feeling flush, and why it's giving some of its traders something special.
Traders at BNP's Lisbon office in Portugal says they've been gifted some vouchers by their employers. People at BNP in Lisbon who are earning less than €30k are getting €500 of vouchers. People who are earning less than €60k are getting €300 of vouchers. The participating merchants, which include Ikea and Primark, are shown below.
A spokeswoman for BNP Paribas said the bank's Portugal branch created the vouchers as an "exceptional measure" and that they're "totally independent of the annual compensation review which will take place as usual in February 2023."
The vouchers are intended as a present to BNP staff in a world of rising inflation.
However, BNP traders who have already been complaining about their low pay in the Portuguese capital are not impressed. "€35k of base pay per year is a mere dream for the most of us," says one trader. "And now we are being given this charity. We are not impressed."
BNP Paribas has been building out its trading floor in Lisbon. It has around 250 people there right now but aspires to have 400 by 2025. Traders work across equities, G10 rates and EM FX and the intention is to expand across trading, structuring and sales. Compensation is considerably lower than in London or Paris.
Photo by Jueun Song on Unsplash
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