The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) announced on Thursday that it will freeze the salaries of 400 senior bankers who earn more than $150,000 a year to avoid big job cuts.

The move also aims to protect the lender's margin. However, the freeze order applies to CBA officials' base pay only, not on short-term incentives and other bonuses.

In effect, the total compensation of these executives would still likely go up like what happened in 2008 when CBA made a similar move.

Thus, then CBA Chief Executive Ralph Norris even doubled his compensation over the next two years to $16.15 million in 2010 from $8.66 million in 2008 which made him Australia's highest-paid banker, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

The same thing would likely happen to the pay of current Chief Executive Ian Narev and the other CBA bankers who are covered by the freeze pay order. Prior to his appointment in December 2011 as chief executive, Mr Narev had a $2.68 million compensation package in 2011, plus a cash bonus of $488,000.

ANZ made a similar freeze on executive pay to protect margins even if collectively the big four collectively made $25 billion in 2011.

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