Over 40 Luxembourg bankers paid more than €1m last year

More than 40 bankers in Luxembourg had salaries of more than €1 million last year, according to a report by Europe’s banking regulator.

All but five of the 44 top-paid bankers in the country in 2023 were men, the European Banking Authority (EBA) said. Four Luxembourg bankers had salaries of between €2 million and €3 million, while the remaining 40 were paid between €1-2 million.

The number of high earners in Luxembourg was around the same as Austria, Denmark and Sweden, all countries with much larger populations. Another leading financial hub in the EU, the Republic of Ireland, had 65 employees of banks and investment firms who earned over one million euros per year in 2023.

All of the top earners in Luxembourg were from banks, and none from investment firms, the report found.

Across Europe, while the number of high earners remained stable – increasingly by just one person between 2022 and 2023 – the balance shifted slightly further in the favour of banking institutions and away from investment firms, where the total number dropped by almost a third over the year.

“The drop in high earners reported by investment firms can be attributed to the less profitable financial year and lower market volatility,” the EBA said in a press release.

Across the 30 countries analysed, there were more than 2,343 bankers and investment firm staff earning more than a million euros per year. The largest number – 620 – were in Germany, which was closely followed by France and Italy. Across Europe, only 11.8% of the top earners were women.