UK banks urged to reveal benefits

LONDON: Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government is proposing a law requiring British banks to disclose salaries and bonuses given to their best-paid traders and executives.

Brown, speaking in Parliament, said the Financial Services Bill would compel banks to "publish for the first time the remuneration of the most senior executives". The Treasury was due to introduce the legislation at 11.30 am in London yesterday.

The Treasury will adopt a recommendation forcing banks to publish the number of executives it has in specific pay bands as well as the earnings and long-term remuneration for those people, a government official said, asking to remain unnamed because the bill hadn't at the time been published.