The Federal Reserve told big US banks on Monday that draft pay guidelines aimed at curbing excessive risk-taking will have to be followed in this year’s round of bonus payments, even though the rules do not officially come into force until 2010.

US bank bonuses

A breakdown of bonus payments made by the nine banks that received billions in Tarp funds

The call for a speedy implementation of the proposals underlines the Fed’s desire to change Wall Street’s pay practices and stave off a public backlash ahead of what promises to be a bumper bonus season at many banks.

The timing of the Fed’s move is important because it sets the tone on compensation just as financial institutions are deciding how to apportion their 2009 bonus pool to star bankers and traders.

In meetings at the regional offices of the Fed, regulators told chief executives of the nation’s 28 top banks that they had until February 1 to prepare a written analysis of how their compensation practices meet the guidelines, according to some of the attendees.

The New York Fed meeting was attended by some of the world’s most prominent bankers, including John Mack, chairman of Morgan Stanley, Vikram Pandit, Citigroup’s chief executive, and US representatives from European banks such as Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank.

The Fed stressed that banks would be expected to comply with the broad principles of the new rules – aligning compensation with risk and avoiding pay structures that foster short-term decisions by traders – in 2009, bankers said.

Officials said that, for this year, banks should abide by the proposed rules “whenever possible” – a sign that regulators do not expect financial groups to tear up contracts or renege on promises of guaranteed bonuses made in previous years.

Banks have until November 27 to comment on the draft guidelines, which were released 10 days ago, but few expect substantial changes to the rules.

Bankers who were at the meetings said the Fed’s message was clear: practices that contradict the spirit of the new rules will not be tolerated this year even though the final version of the guidelines will not be available until December.

“They told us in no uncertain terms to look at our pay practices for this year and make sure they comply,” said a senior banker who was at the meeting.

The US authorities see the financial industry’s pay practices, particularly those that rewarded short-term risk-taking, as contributing to the build-up in risk that led to the financial crisis.

But unlike some European counterparts such as the UK, the US regulators have steered clear of mandating that a percentage of bankers’ bonuses should be deferred for a number of years. US officials have argued that a one-size-fits-all rule would not be in the best interests of the financial system.

Separately, Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank and chairman of the Institute of International Finance, launched a scathing attack on current regulatory thinking, describing political pressure to cut banks down in size as “totally misguided”.

He told a conference organised by the UK’s Financial Services Authority that the push for banks to organise themselves as a string of subsidiaries was “completely unacceptable”.

“The idea that we could run modern, sophisticated, prosperous economies with a population of mid-sized savings banks is totally misguided,” he said.

The Swiss-born banker, the closest the world has to a spokesman for the financial sector, was speaking at a conference on regulation organised by the Financial Services Authority, the UK watchdog.