Standard Chartered said on Friday that the pension allowances for its chief executive and chief financial officer Andy Halford will be halved from January following a shareholder protest.

Bill Winters and Andy Halford have both agreed to have their pension allowances cut from 20 per cent to 10 per cent of their salary, putting them in line with the rest of the bank’s workforce in Britain.

Some 36 per cent of votes cast at StanChart’s annual shareholder meeting in London in May were against its directors remuneration report, which set out plans to increase Winters’ pension allowance among other measure.

Winters had previously defended his pension arrangements, calling investors that voted against his allowance as “immature and unhelpful” in an interview with the Financial Times .

StanChart said in a statement that taking investors’ views into consideration, its remuneration committee has concluded that the bank should make the changes to avoid ”distraction” from delivering the bank’s business strategy.

“This aligns the executive directors’ pension arrangement with UK employees of Standard Chartered from the start of 2020,” it said.

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