On 19 January 2023, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published a report on high earners data as of end 2021.

Under the CRD IV and the Investment Firms Directive the EBA is required to publish aggregated data on high earners earning EUR 1 million or more per financial year. In this latest report the EBA has analysed data that Member State competent authorities have provided to it for the year 2021 and compared it to the 2020 data.

The report highlights the following:

• In 2021, the number of high earners receiving remuneration of more than EUR 1 million increased by 41.5% from 1,383 in 2020 to 1,957 in 2021. This is the largest increase since the EBA started the data collection in 2010.
• 70% of the increase in terms of the number of all high earners was coming from institutions located in Italy, France and Spain.
• The percentage of deferred remuneration in relation to the total variable remuneration awarded to all high earners went up from 50.1% in 2020 to 56.4% in 2021.
• The weighted average ratio of variable to fixed remuneration for all high earners increased from 86.4% in 2020 to 100.6% in 2021.