New York bankers best paid, London at bottom: poll

London bankers' mighty pay has fallen from the highest level among global financial centers to the lowest, with Wall Street financiers grabbing the top spot, a poll showed on Sunday.

According to the survey across a range of businesses and countries by Napier Scott recruiters, London bankers saw an average drop of 62 percent in their salaries and bonuses for 2008, and took home 40 percent less in remuneration than their New York counterparts.

The pollsters noted that the devaluation of the British pound against both the dollar and the euro over the past year helped make London bankers' pay appear smaller.

Private bankers came out as overall winners, seeing the smallest drop in pay. Managing directors at top private banks across Britain, Switzerland, Russia and Dubai pocketed 510,000 pounds ($747,800) on average.

On the opposite end of the scale, pay in the structured credit business plummeted 86 percent.

Geographically, bankers in the Middle East took the smallest pay cuts, while Russian-based financiers were the hardest-hit.

Napier Scott conducts the survey, now in its eighth year, annually among nearly 4,000 bankers in the main financial centers.

($1=.6820 Pound)