Originally Posted by Unregistered

Guys relax. The high intern pay is a ploy used by all the IBs and not just Barcs.

It is meant to generate such WTF reactions (like yours) as it create brand awareness. It creates the impression that the IB house pays well and the bank hopes the intern tells their friends back at their grad/post grad school so that it builds up their brand equity.

I was in 2 US banks C*** and Leh****, both have such structures for their interns.

Although the starting salaries for full time hires are also in that range, don't forget it is just a very small minority that eventually land such jobs. Competition is stiff. Imagine everyone hears about the $10k starting salary? The queue to join is massive.

Anyways, just to share that the starting salaries for IB have not gone down but gone up. It is about $13k now (including allowances but exclude Bonus). But total compensation has gone down because Bonus is much lower.