Credit Suisse boss Tidjane Thiam asks for his bonus to be slashed as thousands of workers lose their jobs

Sacrifice?: Thiam's not hard up - he collected £41.3million in pay while boss at Prudential

Credit Suisse chief executive Tidjane Thiam has asked to have his bonus slashed following the firm's poor performance last year.

Thiam called on the board to cut his 2015 bonus by between 25 and 50 per cent, in what has been deemed an 'act of solidarity' with workers who have recently lost their jobs.

However Credit Suisse refused to provide a figure of what his bonus would be, regardless of whether or not the board goes ahead with Thiam's request. 

In his previous job as chief executive of Prudential he collected a massive £41.3million in pay and share bonuses over just five years.

In 2015 Credit Suisse reported its first full-year loss in eight years.

It also plans to cut thousands of jobs and faces a ongoing $2.6billion legal settlement in the United States for helping wealthy people there evade taxes.

In a statement, Thiam said: 'I have asked the board of directors for a significant reduction in my bonus.

'Within the management team, the cut is greatest in my case.

'I cannot demand sacrifices from others and not make any myself.'

He had previously described remuneration as a 'battle ground' - saying he was not against bonuses for investment bankers if pay goes up and down with performance, but said some bankers were unwilling to accept the 'down' part.

Thiam was appointed last July and has led a major restructuring of the bank and said the bonus pool would be 11 per cent smaller than the previous year.

As a result others at the bank are also seeing bonus payments trimmed.

Top level bank bosses have foregone bonuses in the past, but the move is rare.

In 2012, Stephen Hester, who was then chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, refused to take any bonus following severe problems at the bank.

Hester said at the time: 'Banking is an industry that expanded incredibly fast and with great success over previous years and frankly got too proud of itself. 

'It almost got too separated from society. People thought they were masters of the universe when they should have been servants of the customer.' 

Thiam's move will be popular with shareholders and the general public but it does bring back worrying memories of the financial crisis when the banking industry was on its knees.  

Overview: Credit Suisse shares are on the slide and stand at their lowest level since the middle of 2012

Global bank shares have been under pressure lately, driven down by record low interest rates, heavy new regulation and ongoing trading scandals.   

Standard Chartered shares are at their lowest ebb in more than 20 years, at levels last seen in 1994, in the run-up to the Asian banking crisis. 

The shares closed last week at 453.05p - just two months after investors stumped up £3.4billion for a rights issue at 465p, which was then a 35 per cent discount to the market price. 

Barclays, which closed last week at 173.15p, is approaching a level at which it last traded at the onset of the financial crisis in 2008. 

Shares in Deutsche Bank, German-listed but one of the City's biggest employers, are down 42 per cent in the past year, while Credit Suisse is doing a little better, down a third over the same period.