EBA Publishes Benchmarking Report on Management Bodies in Banks

More diverse management bodies can help improve decision-making regarding strategies and risk-taking by incorporating a broader range of views, opinions, experiences, perceptions, values and backgrounds. All institutions are required to adopt a policy promoting diversity within their management bodies. The issue of diversity is not limited to gender; it also concerns the age, professional and educational background, and geographical provenance of the members of the management body. Despite the legal requirements, a significant proportion of institutions have still not adopted a diversity policy and not all institutions that have adopted a diversity policy promote gender diversity by setting a target for the under-represented gender. EBA calls on institutions and member states to consider additional measures for promoting a more balanced representation of both genders and on competent authorities to ensure institutions’ compliance with the requirement to adopt diversity policies.

The gender representation in institutions’ management bodies continued to differ significantly between member states. EBA analyzed whether there was, in 2018, a correlation between the profitability of a credit institution and the composition of the executive directors within the management body. Credit institutions that have executive directors of both genders seem to have a higher probability of a return on equity at or above the average of 6.42% than credit institutions with executive directors of only one gender. While 54.70% of the credit institutions with more gender-balanced management bodies in their management function have the return on equity at or above 6.42%, only 40.69% of those with executive directors of just one gender reach that return on equity level. EBA also collected data on remuneration for the management body to establish if there is a gender pay gap and found that the remuneration of male members of the management body is higher than that for female members.

Under the relatively recently revised Capital Requirements Directive or CRD5, EBA is mandated to benchmark gender-neutral remuneration practices and will carry out further work in this area. Therefore, EBA has revised and clarified its benchmarking methodology. Since the last exercise, benchmarks regarding employee representatives have been added and, as part of the 2019 exercise, EBA has performed a first benchmarking of the gender pay gap at the level of the management body. 

Related Links

• Press Release
• Report (PDF)
• Visualization Tool on Benchmarking

Keywords: Europe, EU, Banking, Benchmarking Exercise, CRR/CRD, Operational Risk, Governance, Remuneration Practices, Disclosures, EBA