LONDON - Britain will force its banks to reveal the number of staff earning more than one million pounds (S$2.3 million) a year under recommended reforms of governance in the financial sector unveiled Thursday.

Finance minister Alistair Darling pledged to swiftly implement the report's recommendations, which also include giving non-executive directors more power to monitor banks' risk-taking and pay deals.

Some observers blame the bonus culture of the world's two pre-eminent financial sectors - the City of London and Wall Street - for encouraging excessive risk-taking that helped to tip the global economy into chaos.

Half of bonuses paid to bankers in Britain should be deferred for three to five years, according to a government-backed review of banks, commissioned in the wake of the financial meltdown that plunged the sector into crisis.

Sir David Walker, who carried out the review, said the number of staff earning more than one million pounds must be disclosed - although they should not be named.

"In the big banks there would be hundreds of people paid more than a million," said Walker, a former investment banking boss.

Efforts to rein in pay packages have so far focused on chairmen and chief executives, but Walker said other top officials played their part.

"The most senior traders and others in positions of significant influence in some banks played a key role in what proved to be an unsustainable build-up in leverage and associated balance sheet exposures," his report said.

It recommended that remuneration greater than one million pounds should also be broken down, including into salary, cash bonuses, deferred shares and pension contributions, for publication.

Walker's proposals on pay and bonuses are tougher than those agreed at the G20 summit of world leaders in September and that British banks have already agreed to, but still hold back from any cap.

"Sir David's proposals are the blueprint for how banks must be run in the future," said Darling.

Some of the recommendations, including revealing top-end pay, are already included in legislation announced last week by Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour government.

Walker said he had asked the government to put the proposal into legislation because otherwise financial firms would "think of any reason" not to comply.

"I think disclosure of high-end remuneration just would not happen unless it is statutorily based," he said.

Britain spent billions of pounds bailing out some of the country's biggest institutions including Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group at the height of the financial crisis.

The crisis sparked regulatory changes but Walker said: "Improved governance can play an important complementary role by instilling greater confidence in the way banks are being run by their boards and overseen by their owners."

The review, commissioned in February, also wants a greater role for bank chairmen, who should stand for reelection annually, rather than the three years currently stipulated, to make them more accountable to shareholders.