Yes, but is there really a need for common sense and transparency in the international banking industry? Secrets about excessive risk seems to have worked out well for the bankers and everyone knows that politicians are the biggest pushovers on the planet.
The Basel Committee wants banks to be made to publish the number and size of any bonuses or "golden hellos" and "parachutes". As such they go rather further than the Walker report, in which Sir David Walker proposed only the publication of bands of remuneration without very much more detail.
Mr Osborne has written to his European counterparts to gain agreement on a common framework for disclosure. That will almost certainly mean that little will be known about pay and bonuses during the next season, something that intensely irritates critics and the general public – Mr Cable has admitted that it is an explosive issue politically.
The Basel Committee proposes the following disclosures: on governance and committee structures, the link between remuneration and performance, and long-term performance measures and types of remuneration, ie cash or equity, and fixed or variable.
