Diversity and inclusion
What diversity and inclusion (D&I) means to our organisation
At the EBA, we are all committed to fostering an open and inclusive workplace culture. The EBA strives to ensure equal treatment and opportunities to everyone, irrespective of who they are, where they come from and what they believe in! With this in mind, the EBA pays the highest attention to ensuring equal chances for men and women in its organisation and through its policy and convergence work for the banking and financial sector.
The EBA is fully committed to the EU Commission’s Gender Equality Strategy to make significant progress towards a gender-equal Europe by 2025 and the UN’s ambitious global target of achieving gender equality and empowering women by 2030.
The EBA is also fully committed to taking a proactive and inclusive approach to diversity and inclusion, in line with the Charter on Diversity and Inclusion developed by the EU Agencies Network as well as in accordance with Article 1d of the Staff Regulations.
Since the last quarter of 2020, the EBA has been very active in embedding gender equality in its culture. Within only a few years, thanks to its commitment and active involvement, the EBA has achieved a gender-equal leadership, and the numbers say it all.
An increasing representation of women in decision-making positions, helps building bridge in diversity resulting into a stronger EBA team working towards common values and goals. It also enriches the Authority’s culture by fostering a new way of thinking, creativity, and changing behaviour and challenging stereotypes.
It also contributes to a community of respect that values differences, thus portraying unity in diversity. It increases the sense of belonging making staff feel valued, engaged and empowered thus creating inclusion and building buy-in at the EBA (in the 2022, the Staff Engagement Survey showed that more than 75% of staff expressed a sense of belonging and acknowledged the EBA as a more productive, innovative and collaborative organisation).
The EBA strictly adheres to the principle that all the Union’s citizens are equal and that discrimination on the basis on nationality is prohibited by the Treaties, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the Staff Regulations. This is why the EBA is recruiting and employing staff from the broadest possible geographical basis.
Geographical distribution in June 2023 |
The EBA is also working towards supporting and enabling a culturally safe environment for people with disabilities, promoting their overall well-being and quality of life as well as contributing to a more diverse and inclusive EU society. The EBA is promoting disability inclusion through a series of initiatives focusing on raising awareness, organising trainings and workshops, collaborating with specific organisations (Choose Paris Region), offering accessible digital environment and flexible working arrangements, providing reasonable accommodations for candidates in the selection processes, etc.
How we promote diversity and inclusion
The third ESAs gender equality conference Financial services and gender: data, trends and progress in the EU and beyond aims to share experiences, evidence, knowledge, and practices around the crucial topic of gender equality in the financial sector.
Several high-level speakers will join the discussion, including Nadia Calvino (European Investment Bank), Sam Woods (Bank of England), Andrea Maechler (Bank for International Settlements). The conference will be moderated by Nick Comfort from Bloomberg.
Watch the recording of the conference
We are organizing a series of talks with our Top Management and representatives of EU institutions to exchange views and best practices on the implementation of diversity and inclusion policies and principles in the workplace.
The EBA Executive Director François-Louis Michaud and Gertrud Ingestad, Director-General for Human Resources and Security (European Commission) discuss gender equality and inclusion practices at management level and across different sectors. | The EBA Executive Director, François-Louis Michaud, and Frances Fitzgerald, Member of the European Parliament, discuss the importance of female presence in economics and finance, and the economic loss deriving from gender unbalance. |
The second ESAs’ gender equality conference Are we on the right track? aimed at fostering exchanges, views, and experiences about what is happening on this critical topic across the different sectors and to keep the momentum going.
The conference attracted a very large participation from the 48 EU agencies and beyond (350+). The audience received excellent guidance from and heard the personal experiences of very high-level speakers, including Commissioner McGuinness, the three ESAs’ chairs, the Director General of the European Commission’s DG on Human Resources and Security, Gertrud Ingestad.
Key take-aways of the event
Watch the recording of the conference | ||
Satisfaction survey results | ||
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The workshop aimed to take stock of the ESAs’ current status on gender balance in the workplace against the broader gender equality strategy of the European Parliament. The ESAs discussed their future priorities for closing the gender gap where one exists, and fostering greater diversity in the workplace, mainly through binding targets and clear monitoring tools.
The conference featured distinguished speakers, including Evelyn Regner, Member of the European Parliament and Chair of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM).
“Ensuring a better gender balance is possible, even in the short run, especially by creating more opportunities. […] We should also be careful to maintain the effort in the long term, by nurturing a culture of equal chances and helping people to prepare for responsibilities.’’ François-Louis Michaud.
How diversity and inclusion is reflected in our policy and regulation work
Since 2015, the EBA has been collecting data on credit institutions and investment firms’ diversity policies, the composition of the management body in terms of gender, age, geographical, educational and professional background and the gender pay gap at the level of the management body.
To reinforce the principles in European Legislation that require to take into account diversity when recruiting members of the management body, equal opportunities and that the principle of equal pay for equal work is complied with and effectively supervised, the EBA has specified those legislative requirements and the related supervisory expectations in its Guidelines.