It is no secret that successful investment bankers on Wall Street are among the top earners on this globe. At Goldman Sachs, top bankers can receive tens of millions in annual bonuses. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic that has been ongoing for almost 2 years, the markets were in a bullish mood in 2021. Thus, compensation costs at Goldman jumped 33% to $17.7 billion for 2021, a whopping $4.4 billion increase fueled mostly by pay increases for good performance, executives said.

The UK fintech unicorn Starling Bank had a great 2021. In a blog post, the company's CEO Anne Boden shared the bank's milestones. The bank finished last year with more than 2.7 million accounts, including 475,000 business accounts for small and medium-sized enterprises. Starling Bank's UK SME market share now tops seven percent, almost half of Barclays’ share.