Could it be that RBS has finally succumbed to commercial reality and increased salaries along with the rest of the industry? Maybe so. An article in yesterday’s Scotsman suggests salaries for some people in the investment bank have been hiked by 100%.

This coincides with news of a new executive bonus plan at RBS, in which senior staff will henceforth be able to receive four times their salary in shares. It also coincides with the revelation that the number of ‘most valuable employees’ (based on the bank’s own rating scale of one to 5) leaving RBS doubled last year.

Conspiracies and conveniently missing Blackberries at BGC (Bloomberg)

Another day, another attack on the City from Lord Turner (Times)

Another senior banker leaves Goldman in Asia (Bloomberg)

Wanted by Germany: people to spy on hedge funds (Dealbook)

Angela Merkel thinks the bonus tax is only half as good as the hedge fund restrictions she’s considering (Financial Times)

Ex-BarCap traders are starting a hedge fund in Madrid (Bloomberg)

The new approach from the FSA seems to be: ‘You must do what we say regardless of what our rule book requires you to do’ (Times)

“We do not intend to discriminate between Japanese and non-Japanese” (Financial Times)

Jasjit “Jesse” Bhattal: The Man Who Saved 3,000 Lehmanites (Deal Journal)

The Harvard thesis that everyone’s talking about (Marginal Revolution)

Complaints that the City is STILL poaching all the best science and engineering graduates (Telegraph)

Whiteboard workers to share 3m in bonuses (Times)