The Financial Times reports that BBVA, Spain's second-largest bank, is offering most of its 30,000 staff the opportunity to take 5 years off to spend more time with their families or become involved in other 'professional projects'. And anyone taking the bank up on its generous offer will be paid 30% of his or her salary, and will be guaranteed a job when they eventually return to the office.

Cynics, however, have not overlooked the fact that there are some pretty dramatic cost-saving implications here, as it is very expensive to go through a staff redundancy exercise in Spain (and BBVA should know, as it has been cutting staff for the last 3 years). It's clearly too early to tell if the scheme, which was only announced a few days back, will encourage staff to take a break but, if not, then the bank can always ensure that employees spend more time with their families by simply laying them off!

And talking of cost savings, we all know that UK government-owned Royal Bank of Scotland is keen to rein in expenses these days. But a little bird tells Here Is The City that one of the bank's North American executives is still getting away with using a private executive kitchen, complete with personal chef. The executive concerned is also said to enjoy gadding around town in a chauffeur-driven car, and allegedly often flies around by private chartered jet. Nice.

And the Evening Standard's City Spy column reported Tuesday that Goldman staff appear to be getting their kids used to a sense of entitlement fairly early on in life. Apparently a group of Goldmaners rocked up recently for a day out at the Hyde Park Tennis Club, but one of the toddlers thought it would be fun to ride his bicycle on the bowling green. The 'grown-ups' are said to have giggled 'like college kids' over the incident.

In the meantime, Bloomberg reports that JPMorgan is to disband its principal investment management group's hedge fund unit and its private equity division, except for the Asia team. The unit's 150 staff are thought likely to be offered other positions within the group.

Finally, shares in Barclays fell 13% Tuesday, after the Abu Dhabi royal family's investment vehicle sold its stake in the bank, raking in a cool $2.3bn profit. Not bad for a 7 month investment.

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