Barack Obama to be paid $400,000 for speech at Cantor Fitzgerald event

Barack Obama is to be paid $400,000 (£312,000) to speak at a healthcare conference organised by the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, despite his criticism of the finance sector when he was US president.

The fee is nearly double that received by Hillary Clinton, who had hoped to replace him as president, for speeches at Goldman Sachs and indicates the scale of the potential earnings of the former US president.

Neither his officials or Cantor Fitzgerald could be reached to comment on the reports from the US, where he is facing criticism for his decision to accept the engagement.

In 2010, Obama was credited with pushing through legislation that was intended to clamp down on Wall Street. A year earlier he said that he did not run for office to help out “a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street”.

The 55-year-old former president returned to the public stage this week to speak at the University of Chicago, where he said he would support future leaders. He told the audience that economic inequality and lack of opportunity, a skewed criminal justice system and climate change must be confronted.

“All those problems are serious, they’re daunting, but they’re not insoluble. What is preventing us from tackling them and making more progress really has to do with our politics and civic life,” he said.

Since the end of his second term he has started to write his memoir – for which he and his wife Michelle are reportedly receiving $60m – and took a holiday with entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson.

Cantor had offices in the World Trade Center and during the September 11 attacks lost two-thirds of its staff. Howard Lutnick, Cantor’s chairman and chief executive, is reported to have backed Jeb Bush, the Republican who lost out to Donald Trump.