The scale of mammoth pay packages in the banking industry was underlined when Barclays revealed that 428 of its workers were paid more than £1m last year, including five who got more than £5m despite a year of scandal and falling profits.
RBS has already been criticised for handing out £607m in bonuses in 2012 as it reported £5.2bn in annual losses.
The bank also suffered a series of reputational blows last year, including its £381m settlement for attempting to rig interbank lending rates, mis-selling scandals and last year's IT meltdown which left millions of customers without access to their bank accounts.
Barclays also suffered a torrid 2012, with pre-tax profits plunging to £246m from £5.9bn in 2011 following its £290m Libor rigging settlement and £2.5 billion in mis-selling provisions.
RBS is 81% owned by the Government. Its report, released as the Stock Market closed today, also showed of the 95 employees in the millionaires' club, 36 earned between £1.5m and £5m and one was paid more than £5m.
Another of the bank's most senior workers earned £4.8m, including long-term incentive shares that will pay out if certain future targets are met.
It's understood that of the 95 RBS million-pound employees, just over half work in the UK.
But the average salary across all its staff was £34,000.
Other figures show that total remuneration for executive directors and top eight executives was £21m, 16% lower than 2011. Since 2010, total variable compensation for the group has been reduced by over 50%.
RBS boss Stephen Hester did not receive an annual bonus for last year, although he was awarded £1.6m in deferred long-term bonus shares.
Finance director Bruce Van Saun received a £980,000 bonus and long-term shares worth £1m, taking his total pay package to £2.7m, according to the bank's remuneration report.
Penny Hughes, chair of RBS's remuneration committee, said the committee had "spent a great deal of time challenging and taking action in response to past events and considering how remuneration can help to drive appropriate behaviours at RBS in future".
But anger has failed to subside against banks after they continued to pay out hefty bonus windfalls despite being embroiled in scandal.
Barclays said it reduced its 2012 bonus pool by £860m for Libor rigging and mis-selling, while it clawed back an additional £300m in previous awards and long-term incentives for the Libor scandal.
A potential £3.3bn bonus pool was also reduced by a further £250m to better align its pay in the market, although it still shared out a total incentives pot worth £2.2bn.
This saw employees pick up an average £13,000 in bonuses last year, with investment bankers taking £54,100 on average.
The report also confirmed that former Barclays boss Bob Diamond - who quit last summer in the wake of the bank's Libor-fixing settlement - will continue to be paid salary and pension until July.
He stepped down last summer, but remains entitled to an annual salary of £1.4m and £675,000 a year cash in lieu of pension.
Sir John Sunderland, head of Barclays' remuneration committee, said in the report: "I hope that 2012 will be seen as a turning point in the way Barclays approaches remuneration."
He added that the committee will continue to focus on overhauling pay and bonus practices across the bank over the coming months.
TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said the scale of pay suggested Barclays is "acting as if the financial crisis never happened".
She added: "But ordinary people, who have been made to pay for the folly of bankers, have longer memories and will find the size and scale of these payouts obscene.
"The EU is absolutely right to push ahead with its bonus cap and George Osborne should start siding with the interests of the electorate and the wider economy, rather than the rich and powerful elite in the City."
Other trade unions hit out over "rampant inequality" between pay for those on the front line and bankers at the top as Barclays said more than 71,500 staff received less than £25,000 in 2012.
Dominic Hook, Unite national officer for finance, said: "The rampant inequality in the pay between the top Barclays' executives and those on the front line who deal directly with customers is shocking - and needs to be addressed by the chief executive, Antony Jenkins, as a matter of urgency."
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