On 21 January 2022, the European Banking Authority (EBA) issued a consultation to update its guidelines on the remuneration benchmarking exercise under the Capital Requirements Directive IV (CRD IV), which was originally published in 2012 and updated in 2014.
The review is necessary to take into account additional requirements introduced by the CRD V regarding the application of derogations under Article 94(3) of the CRD IV and the benchmarking of the gender pay gap. In addition, guidelines to harmonise the benchmarking of approvals granted by shareholders to use higher ratios than 100% between the variable and fixed remuneration under Article 94(1)(g)(ii) of the CRD IV have been added. The update also considers the amendments to the disclosure requirements under the Capital Requirements Regulation. In this regard, the templates for the data collection have been revised, taking also into account Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/637 (ITS on disclosures).
A separate and specific set of draft guidelines is provided for investment firms under the Investment Firms Directive. The EBA is mandated under Article 34(2) of the Directive to benchmark remuneration trends and practices of investment firms at Union level.
Both consultations run until 21 March 2022.
It is planned that data will be collected under both guidelines in 2023 for the financial year 2022.
The first data on the gender pay gap will be collected in 2024 for the financial year 2023.
A public hearing on the draft guidelines on the remuneration and gender pay benchmarking exercises as well as on draft guidelines on the data collection exercise on high earners (which are being consulted on in parallel) will take place via conference call on 17 February 2022 from 14:00 to 15:30 CET.