The chief executive officers of Canada’s big banks are among the 20 best-paid bank CEOs in North America, according to Bloomberg Markets magazine.

Three of the Canadian CEOs also rank among the most overpaid relative to the bank’s assets, performance of its shares, and the bank’s return on equity, according to the article to be published in the July 2013 issue.

Royal Bank’s Gordon Nixon, who received the equivalent of $12.6 million (U.S.) in 2012 in total compensation, is the highest-ranking Canadian CEO. He came in fourth place on the Bloomberg list.

Nixon is followed by Richard Waugh of the Bank of Nova Scotia, who was paid $11.1 million, and Toronto-Dominion Bank’s Ed Clark, who earned $10.8 million. They were ranked 7th and 8th, respectively. All figures represent total compensation in the equivalent of U.S. dollars.

Gerald McCaughey, head of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, who earned $9.3 million, came in 11th on the list, followed by the Bank of Montreal’s Bill Downe, who earned $9.2 million.

Louis Vachon, head of National Bank of Canada, takes the 17th spot; he earned $7.2 million last year.

The compensation ranking is based on salaries, stock awards, bonuses, and long-term pay awarded to CEOs for their performance in 2012, Bloomberg Markets said.

The top spot on the list goes to Lloyd Blankfein, who took home $26 million last year as the head of Goldman Sachs Group.

His bank, the fourth-largest by assets, saw its shares rise by 43.4 per cent last year and the bank enjoyed return on equity of 10.7 per cent, Bloomberg Markets noted.

Blankfein ranked as the second-most overpaid chief executive officer, with the top spot going to Richard Fairbank, head of Capital One Financial.

Fairbank, who earned $17.5 million in 2012, received no salary for the 16th year, a Capital One spokesperson told Bloomberg. His compensation was based on stock and tied to the company’s performance.

Bloomberg Markets ranked Nixon, Waugh, and Clark as overpaid; McCaughey and Vachon were ranked as underpaid.

Pay for the CEOs of Canadian firms was compiled using data reported to the Canadian Securities Administrators in each company’s annual proxy statement for its fiscal year ended on Oct. 31 The compensation data was then converted to U.S. dollars using the Oct. 31, 2012 exchange rate, Bloomberg said.

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For its most overpaid and underpaid ranking, Bloomberg ranked the banks on assets, stock performance, and return on common equity and took the average of the three rankings for each firm. It then subtracted the CEO’s compensation rank from his firm’s average position, Bloomberg said.

The executivew with the biggest difference between the two rankings was the most overpaid; the leader with the smallest difference was the most underpaid.