£2.4bn bonus for Credit Suisse bankers despite massive job cuts and £1.9bn loss

Bankers at Credit Suisse shared a bonus pot of £2.4 billion last year, despite a ruthless cost-cutting drive which saw thousands of staff axed and the lender posting a hefty loss.

The Swiss bank's variable compensation pool rose 6% to 3.09 billion Swiss francs (£2.4 billion) in 2016, according to its annual report published on Friday.

A total of 43,412 employees shared the award, and chief executive Tidjane Thiam saw his total pay packet come in at 11.9 million Swiss francs (£9.5 million).

The award comes a month after Mr Thiam announced plans to slash more than 5,500 jobs and the bank posted an annual net loss of 2.4 billion Swiss francs (£1.9 billion) for 2016.

It adds to the 7,250 staff cuts that took place in 2016 as part of major restructuring plans introduced by Mr Thiam in a bid to reduce risk and shave down costs to less than 17 billion Swiss francs (£13.6 billion) by the end of 2018.

Earlier this week, Deutsche Bank cut its bonus pot by 77% following a difficult year for the troubled German lender, which saw it stump up billions in fines.

The bank's annual report showed that staff shared 500 million euro (£433 million) in bonuses last year, compared with 2.4 billion euro (£2.1 billion) in 2015.

But members of Deutsche's board, including Yorkshire-born chief executive John Cryan, did not receive a bonus for the second year in a row.