RBS underestimated anger over Stephen Hester's bonus, chairman admits Mr Hester, who took over as chief executive from shamed former boss Fred Goodwin, came in for widespread criticism after it emerged that he had been awarded a £1 million bonus from the bank, which is 83 per cent owned by the taxpayer. He added: "Stephen Hester and his team are doing a good job in fixing the bank and getting it ready to go back into the markets. Although their pay is very high in absolute terms, in relative terms, compared to bankers and indeed top businessmen generally, it is not particularly high. In fact by most measures it's quite low. And he said he felt pay within the banking industry needed to come down as a whole. He explained: "Essentially, particularly in the banks, particularly in the investment banks, shareholders have done pretty badly and employees have done pretty well. That needs to be corrected. But he added that pay was falling within the industry.