There was a material gender pay gap in European financial institutions and investment firms in 2023, according to a report by the European Banking Authority (EBA).
Its Benchmarking of remuneration trends and practices and the gender pay gap, 2021-2023 data report found that in EU investment firms, women were paid 32% less than their male counterparts in 2023. Female identified staff, those that have a material impact on an institution’s risk profile, earned 31.74% less than male colleagues.
Female staff in EU institutions earned 24.48% less in 2023 than male employees; the gap was 21.64% for identified staff.
The report found that the pay gap was mainly caused by the underrepresentation of women in higher-paid positions: women only held 33.45% of the highest paid positions in institutions and just 12.99% in investment firms.
Overall, women and men were equally represented in institutions with a median representation of 51.65%, but underrepresented in investment firms at 35.43%.
According to the EBA, the report shows the need for financial organisations and authorities to closer analyse the reasons for the gender pay gap and to address gender representation disparities.
It is revising its own internal governance guidelines to help improve the monitoring of gender aspects in institutions and investment firms.
The report also analysed renumeration practices and found that these remained stable in institutions between 2021 and 2023, but the ratio between the variable and fixed remuneration in investment firms increased significantly following the introduction of the Investment Firms Directive (IFD) in June 2021.
The average ratio between variable and fixed pay for identified staff in investments firms was 145.85% in 2023, higher than the ratio in institutions of 59.59%.
