Are bank CEOs overpaid?

gzlaser

SOME senior executives of Chinese banks that are listed on the stock market collected several million yuan in annual salaries last year, newspapers reported recently.

Ma Weihua, the president of China Merchants Bank, for example, took home 4.46 million yuan for his work in 2006. Frank Newman, the American chairman of Shenzhen Development Bank, made as much as 9.95 million yuan.

The news set off a debate in the press and on the Internet, with many saying that such salaries are too high for today's China. Most ordinary people couldn't make that much in an entire lifetime. This will only help make China's wealth gap wider, they say.

Others question whether these officials' performances were good enough to rate such a high salary. But some people point out that bank executives play an essential role in making the banks profitable and deserve the payout.

Do you think Chinese banks are paying their executives too much these days?