ING is planning to increase the salary of board chairman Ralph Hamers by more than 50% to €3m, the Financieele Dagblad reported on Thursday. The pay rise will take his basic salary to 30 times that of the average bank employee.

The bank’s supervisory board believe he earns too little when compared with the chief executives of similar sized European companies such as Volkswagen, Ahold-Delhaize and Société Générale, the paper said.

‘Ralph Hamers is premier league but paid as if he was second division,’ supervisory board chairman Jeroen van der Veer told the FD.

Van der Veer would not say if Hamers had requested the pay rise, but said he hoped staff at the bank would understand. The most recent ING pay deal gave staff a 1.7% rise.

Fury

MPs have reacted furiously to news of the pay increase, describing it as ‘arrogance’ and out of touch.

‘The banking sector still has no idea about social decency,’ ChristenUnie MP Eppo Bruins said.

Finance minister Wopke Hoekstra has also condemned the ‘disproportional pay rise’.

‘In no way does this help restore the fragile trust in the financial sector,’ he said. Hoekstra said he had been told Hamers’ salary would go up, but not by how much. He told MPs he had already been in touch with the bank about the increase.

ING was bailed out by taxpayers to the tune of €10bn during the financial crisis but has since repaid the debt.

ING verhoogt het salaris van topman met meer dan de helft, tot ruim 3 miljoen per jaar. Terwijl het personeel 1,7% loonsverhoging krijgt. In wat voor universum leeft de top van ING?https://t.co/EHODFXqIgY

— Jesse Klaver (@jesseklaver) March 8, 2018