Market regulators should give more direction to investment banks on how to pay their staff, according to one panel of industry figures, which also said shareholders must take a more active role in monitoring pay packages.

The discussion, held at the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday, concluded that tighter regulation of pay should be the price banks paid for moving from a private partnership structure to one based on public ownership. The US investment bank Goldman Sachs, for example, went public in 1998.