Only 20% of financial institutions surveyed by a Chicago accounting firm, Grant Thornton LLP, plan to increase hiring in the next six months and more than half are reducing bonuses for senior managers.
   

The annual “Survey of Financial Executives” taken by chief financial officers and comptrollers also found that 40% believe the U.S. economy will improve during the same time period “making banking/financial institutions more pessimistic than other industries.”

Nearly one-third are reducing health care benefits and nearly one-quarter are reducing 401(k) matches. However, only one-third of financial institution CFOs report that their company is reducing salary raises, 9 points lower than the national number.

A spokesman for the firm said the survey questions were tallied during September from more than 840 managers “from public and private companies of which 42 were from banks or other financial institutions.”  A spokesman said she was unsure how many CUs were in the survey group.