BUSINESS BRIEFING / BANKING

After raking in millions as a top executive of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Lloyd C. Blankfein said outsized banker pay encouraged excess and worked “against the public interest.”

The furor over bankers’ pay after last year’s financial crisis often was “understandable and appropriate,” Blankfein reportedly said at a banking conference in Germany.

“There is little justification for the payment of outsized discretionary compensation when a financial institution lost money for the year,” Blankfein said.