The new CEO of Deutsche Bank just called out the bank's bonus culture with three key words
Included on a presentation slide outlining the "significant challenges" at the bank's market division was a bullet point made up of three words: "Inflexible compensation culture."
In other words, he is saying that pay didn't move down as much as it should have when revenues fell.
The slide said that the global markets units, which is made up of the businesses which sell and trade equities, bonds, foreign exchange and derivatives, would remain a "core business."
Cryan, who has been CEO of Deutsche Bank since June, wouldn't be the first leader of a European bank to complain about compensation. Barclays chairman John McFarlane spoke at the annual conference of the British Bankers' Association in October and argued that bankers now earn too much.
"I used to run the markets side of various institutions and I was never paid anything close to anything people get paid in these areas now," MacFarlane said.