Europe’s banks are caught in the bonus trap

That’s one of the things with the banker bonuses. The topic provokes and polarizes – and you can really only lose with it. The “normal” citizen will never understand why there are more than 600 income millionaires at Deutsche Bank alone, most of them in investment banking. So when it becomes clear in a few weeks how much Deutsche Bank & Co. will pay out bonuses, then the public outcry is programmed once again.

Morally judging whether the high one-off payments are right or wrong does not help the debate. Much more interesting is the look at the structural dilemma that lies behind it and that cannot be resolved so quickly: The big banks are doing well when the capital market business is running smoothly, this is where the greatest leverage lies.