EBA Exposes Stubborn 23% Gender Pay Gap—Banking Sector Still Paying Lip Service to Equality

Europe’s banking watchdog drops an inconvenient truth bomb: women still earn 77 cents for every male euro in finance.

Glass ceilings intact

Three years of ’diversity initiatives’ later, the needle hasn’t moved—unless you count the 0.5% ’progress’ that barely outpaces inflation.

Bonus irony

The same firms preaching ESG virtues can’t seem to math their way to equal pay. But hey, at least the gender-balanced layoff committees are making ’equitable’ cuts across the board.

The European Banking Authority found that women earned materially less than men in financial institutions and investment firms, with a bigger gap in  investment firms.

The EBA’s Report on Remuneration and Gender Pay Gap Benchmarking found that, on average, female staff in institutions earned 24.48% less in 2023 than their male counterparts. For risk takers the difference was at 21.64%. In investment firms, the pay gap larger with female staff earning 32% less than their male colleagues.

Data on the gender pay gap was collected from 351 institutions and 102 investment firms. The report contains data for 2023 for all staff of institutions and investment firms and separate information on the gender pay gap of identified staff who have a material impact on the entities risk profile.

The pay gap was mainly caused by the underrepresentation of women in higher paid positions, according the EBA.

Source: EBA

Women held one third, 33.45%, of the highest paid positions in institutions and just 12.99% in investment firms, although women and men were equally represented in institutions overall, but underrepresented in investment firms.

Source: EBA

The EBA said  the materiality of the identified gender pay gap raises concerns about the application of the obligation to ensure equal opportunities for staff.

“The data underscores the need for entities and competent authorities to analyse closer the reasons for the observed gender pay gap and to address gender representation and pay disparities and implement measures to promote equal opportunities and pay equity,” added the report.