Do you work to earn a larger bonus or because you like your job? Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan has hit a nerve saying that the bonus system sends the wrong signals.

Deutsche Bank, the pride of Germany's banking industry, has hit choppy waters. The investment bank alone posted a loss of more than 6 billion euros in the third quarter. The new captain, John Cryan, is attempting to guide the ship safely through the storm.

As he tries to turn the tide, he isn't shy of attacking certain tabus. The boss, otherwise known for a certain discretion when dealing with the general public, has been rather clear what he thinks about salaries in his industry.

Why Pay a Bonus?

«I have no idea why I was offered a contract with a bonus in it because I promise you I will not work any harder or any less hard in any year, in any day, because someone is going to pay me more or less,» Cryan said at a conference of the University of Frankfurt.

He doubled up on a statement made a little earlier that had already stung some bankers and earned the applause of those working in other industries: «I believe that people in the banking industry are earning too much money.»

It may have come as a surprise, not least because Cryan himself as chief financial officer at UBS earned a salary well above a million francs. Finally, the bankers see the light, some readers may have thought.

Bonuses as Part of Ironclad Law

But: Deutsche Bank last year increased the fix part of the remunerations of its bankers significantly after the government introduced certain caps on bonuses. Of course, this happened under the guidance of Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen, Cryan's predecessors.

To imply that a bonus isn't performance enhancing runs counter to the ironclad law that a bank needs to pay high bonuses to attract the best talent. But the British top banker isn't the only one to exhibit a certain modesty. The rethink may have started in Switzerland too.

Pascal Koradi, the new chief executive of Aargauer Kantonalbank (AKB) is happy with 600,000 francs a year. The maximum wage that the bank's owner, the Swiss region of Aargau, allows is at the lower end of what a CEO at a similar bank can expect to earn. Koradi told Swiss daily «Blick» he earned enough for a good life.

Trend or Exception?

More important perhaps were his comments that he valued the type of work higher than the remuneration and that he had joined the bank to stay. Thereby implying he wasn't waiting for a better offer by rival institutes.

Postfinance, the banking arm of the country's postal service, last year paid an average 380,000 francs to the eight members of the executive. The state-owned financial services company has a balance sheet of about 120 billion and still finds managers happy to work for a relatively modest salary.

Raiffeisen and Zuercher Kantonalbank by comparison paid its executives 1.3 million francs a head.

Will bankers such as Cryan and Koradi remain the odd ones out? Probably. Because as long as most others banks attract the best with staggering bonuses, salaries will continue to spiral upwards.