Bank Pay Tough to Discern

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Even as regulators move to reform Wall Street pay, it remains difficult for inexpert investors to figure out just how much bank executives earn in any given year.

Ever since the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted stricter disclosure rules in 2006, companies have had to disclose much more information about how much and in what fashion executives get paid. But just because banks aren't "hiding" information doesn't make the trove of pay data any simpler to digest.

To sort through a proxy filing can be tedious and confusing, and requires the knowledge of terms like "above-market preferential earnings on deferred compensation." (Meaning, for instance, that an executive made excellent returns on a pension plan, with an interest rate more than 120% above a long-term federal rate.) Often times there are several ways to analyze an executive's pay and come up with wildly different amounts, depending on what items are deemed worth of inclusion.

For instance, Wells Fargo(WFC Quote) CEO John Stumpf earned a base salary of $878,920 last year. For 2009, the company bumped his pay 2% to $900,000. Unless of course one factors in the stock portion, which would bring the tally to $5.6 million -- more than six times what he earned in 2008. (Stumpf didn't receive stock rewards last year.)

What's even more telling is the nuances in pension calculations that can make an annual increase seem paltry, but end up sending an executive out the door with a golden parachute. Stumpf's pension appears to have fallen 3% in 2008, when in actuality the overall payout he'd receive had risen by 58%. That's because the $17.7 million "lump sum" pension payout was "calculated using a different valuation date and assumptions."