HSBC headquarters, 8 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London. The Hongkong & Shanghai Bank was founded in Hong Kong in 1865.

Top bank chiefs’ average pay in the US and Europe jumped 36% in 2010 to $9.7m, according to data compiled for the Financial Times.

Jamie Dimon, the JPMorgan Chase chief executive, and Goldman Sachs’ CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, received more than 15 times their 2009 earnings. Dimon was paid almost $21m in 2010, heading the FT’s survey of the salary and bonus packages awarded to 15 top bankers. Blankfein earned $14.1m, including a $5.4m cash bonus - - up from $863,000 in 2009.

Blankfein had earned $70m in 2006 and Dimon made $40m.

Equilar, the US compensation company compiled the data, which showed that  the chief executives of four UK headquartered banks - - Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland - - were awarded cash and stock bonuses valued in excess of $26m last year.

The British government has stakes in Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland of 41% and 83% respectively.

FT interactive on bank chief's pay

The New York Times said in April that rarely has the view from the corner office seemed so at odds with the view from the street corner. At a time when millions of Americans are trying to hang on to homes and millions more are trying to hang on to jobs, the chief executives of major corporations like 3M, General Electric and Cisco Systems are making as much today as they were before the recession hit. Indeed, some are making even more.

The Times said the disparity is especially stark as companies are swimming in cash. In the fourth quarter of 2010, profits at American businesses were up an astounding 29.2%, the fastest growth in more than 60 years. Collectively, American corporations logged profits at an annual rate of $1.678trn.

The median pay for top executives at 200 major companies was $9.6m last year. That was a 12% increase over 2009, according to a study conducted for The New York Times by Equilar.