(Yicai) April 12 -- With the downturn in the Chinese capital market and the implementation of a new deferred payment system, securities companies have been shrinking annual staff salaries, putting an end to a golden era.

Bosera Fund and China Merchants Securities set their wage upper limit to CNY3 million (USD414,565) yesterday, according to media reports. The two companies replied “no comment” to Yicai’s inquiries.

China Merchants Securities’ chairman and president both earned CNY3 million last year, compared with CNY3.5 million the former and CNY3.2 million the latter the previous year, according to the company’s earnings report.

The days when the annual salaries of brokerage employees were around CNY1 million are over, according to industry insiders.

Eighteen of the 28 listed securities companies that released their annual reports for last year had an average annual salary between CNY400,000 and CNY600,000 (USD55,280 and USD82,920). Thirteen of them, including China Merchants Securities, had lowered their salaries from the previous year.

The remaining 15, mostly small- and medium-sized ones, had instead increased their salaries. For example, the average salary of Zhongtai Securities surged 40 percent to CNY630,000 in the period. But the company clarified that it was mainly thanks to the merger with Wanjia Asset Management.

Fund companies cut salaries also because of a new allocation system. In June 2022, the Asset Management Association of China asked brokerages to establish and implement deferred payment systems for performance-based remuneration, with a deferred payment period of no less than three years and a deferred payment for executives and managers lower than 40 percent of the total.

“My monthly salary is less than CNY12,000 (USD1,660), and I cannot get any bonus until June, which before would have been paid at the end of last year,” a staffer at a Shanghai-based fund company told Yicai. “There are also rumors that the bonus will be much lower.”

Editor: Futura Costaglione