Royal Bank of Canada

chief executive

Dave McKay

received $23.76 million in total

compensation

last year, a pay package that included a short-term

bonus

that was 86 per cent above his target as the firm achieved record earnings.

Canada’s largest lender also plans to increase annual compensation for its board directors by 22 per cent to $415,000 per year following a review by an external consultant, Royal Bank said in its annual proxy circular, filed Thursday.

McKay’s base

salary

of $2 million in fiscal 2025 was essentially unchanged from a year earlier, the bank said, with the bulk of his compensation coming from incentive pay as well as share- and option-based awards, which are meant to recognize medium- and long-term performance.

His short-term incentive bonus was $7.44 million — paid mostly in cash — topping his target payout of $4 million. McKay received a total of $12.65 million in share- and option-based awards, also above his combined yearly target of $11 million.

Overall, the bank’s long-time CEO took home about $2 million less than in 2024, when he received a larger share-based award in recognition of the bank’s successful closing of its acquisition of HSBC Holdings PLC’s Canadian assets.

Royal Bank had total net income of $20.4 billion in fiscal 2025, “driven by strong year-over-year growth across all business segments,” the company’s board said in the filing, pointing to McKay’s “continued leadership in steering RBC through a turbulent environment.”

Eleven shareholder proposals were submitted for consideration at the bank’s annual meeting on April 9, with topics including climate change, disclosure of the ratio of executive pay to that of average workers, the bank’s use of tax havens and artificial intelligence governance.

National Bank of Canada, the country’s sixth-largest lender, also filed its proxy circular Thursday. It paid CEO Laurent Ferreira $13.45 million in total compensation, up from $12.07 million in 2024.

Bloomberg.com

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