Given its significant size and global importance as a financial hub, Luxembourg and its financial services sector recognize their responsibility and ability to advance gender balance and diversity. The Grand Duchy’s financial sector employs over 60,000 individuals. This figure represents almost 15% of the wage earners, making it one of the country’s largest employers. Given this, Luxembourg’s financial center possesses the unique capacity to act as a prominent influencer and to set important precedents on the pathway to gender balance. Numerous studies have shown that female leadership, at all levels of a company, boosts financial performance, leads to greater employee satisfaction and is also instrumental in cultivating a robust and diverse talent pool.
While Luxembourg boasts the EU’s smallest gender pay gap, there is still substantial progress to be made in advancing the presence of women in upper management and senior leadership roles.
WiF Charter
Women in Finance Charter
Enhancing gender diversity within the Luxembourg financial sector
Why is ensuring gender diversity within the financial centre important?
What is the Luxembourg Women in Finance Charter (WiF)?
The Luxembourg Women in Finance Charter (“WiF Charter”) aims at promoting gender diversity within the Luxembourg financial sector. It constitutes a commitment made by its Founders, signatory companies and representative entities to foster increased gender equality and inclusivity across the Luxembourg financial services landscape. This initiative serves as a foundational framework to advance women’s involvement across all tiers of financial service organizations and representative bodies in Luxembourg.
The WiF Charter was introduced by the following founding members: The Luxembourg Bankers’ Association (ABBL), Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry (ALFI), the Association of Insurance and Reinsurance Companies (ACA), the Luxembourg Capital Markets Association (LuxCMA), Luxembourg Finance Labelling Agency (LuxFLAG) and the Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE), and is under the patronage of the Luxembourg Ministry of Finance.
The Charter was formally launched in the presence of the first signatories during a Ring the Bell Ceremony at LuxSE for International Women’s Day on March 8, 2023.
The Charter establishes a set of actions to be followed by the signatories. For instance, each signatory commits to establish its own voluntary targets to increase gender parity at the most senior level of their organisations.
The Charter is open to a wide spectrum of financial institutions, including banks, asset management firms, and insurance companies, among others.
On yearly basis, the Charter founders and the Luxembourg Sustainable Finance Initiative (LSFI) as the Charter’s external coordinating entity, will publish an annual progress report of the Charter’s signatories. The first annual progress report is foreseen to be published in March 2024.
What does it mean to become a signatory organisation?
By formally endorsing the WiF Charter, financial enterprises affirm their commitment to fostering gender balance and diversity within the financial centre and advocating for increased female representation at all levels.
In particular, signatory organizations undertake the following key actions referred to as the Charter’s Pillars:
- Promoting the progression of women at all levels, including at senior and board levels;
- Appointing an Accountable Executive (AE) who is responsible and accountable for gender diversity and inclusion;
- Setting internal targets and action plans which will be integrated into the firm’s goals;
- Supporting transparency by publicly reporting on progress against these targets annually on the firm’s website.
Following those actions, the signatories will report on a yearly basis on their advancement status with regard to the targets they have set the previous year.
By fulfilling these actions, signatory organizations collectively contribute to advancing gender balance and inclusivity in the Luxembourg financial sector, driving meaningful change, and fostering transparency.
WiF Signatories
Q&A
Who can become a signatory of the WiF Charter?
The Charter is aimed at the actors of the financial sector operating in Luxembourg.
How do I become a signatory?
To become a signatory the organization has to fill out this form and submit the application to the LSFI team: info@lsfi.lu
Submission of the form indicates CEO/Senior Luxembourg Representative approval from the joining party for signing up to the Charter. Within a couple of weeks, the LSFI team will provide the organisation with all the necessary information and guidelines.
Whom should I contact if I need assistance?
Any organisation that requires assistance can contact the LSFI at the following email address: info@lsfi.lu
When do I need to report?
Charter signatories will receive a data collection request on 15th October 2024 in which they will be asked to fill the Charter signatory questionnaire. They will have until 15th November to return the completed questionnaire. Signatory organisations will have the option to choose their yearly metrics date between 1st October 2023 and 30th September 2024.
New Charter signatories that join before 30th September will follow the above mentioned timeline.
Signatories joining between 1st October and the annual report publication date will be included in the new joiners list of the Charter’s annual report, however they will need to start reporting the following year.
When can I become a signatory (e.g., is it open anytime during the year)?
An organisation can become a signatory at anytime during the year.
How long does the endorsement last? (E.g., Do I need to formally renew my commitment every year, how do I keep my signatory status?)
The endorsement doesn’t have an expiration date and signatories set their own target and timeframe by which they intend to achieve the target in question. However, signatories are asked to report annually on the metrics and progress made towards achieving objectives and targets. Therefore if a signatory organisation fails to report once, it will lose its signatory status and will be removed from the Charter’s list.
How will progress be reported and managed?
To facilitate the reporting process, the WiF Charter’s founders have designated the Luxembourg Sustainable Finance Initiative (LSFI) as external coordinating entity and data partner. The LSFI will also oversee coordination with the Steering Committee composed of the Charter’s founding members (ABBL, ACA, ALFI, LuxCMA, LuxFLAG and LuxSE) and will take charge of directing and managing the reporting process. This streamlined approach guarantees a unified and centralized method for all signatory organisations.
Where can I find the annual progress report?
The LSFI discloses on yearly basis a WiF progress report by the end of Q1 with the data referring to the previous year.
How will the data be disclosed? (E.g. Aggregated report, the targets of each signatory will be publicly available)
As stated in the Pillars and in the WiF Charter Guidelines, signatory organisations must support transparency by publicly and annually reporting their progress against the set targets. It will be considered good practice for signatories to include a Women in Finance section in their Annual Report.
The LSFI will publish an aggregated annual report covering signatories’ progress against the targets they set forth.
How should signatories treat their subsidiaries in the framework of the WiF Charter?
Groups may choose to consolidate their subsidiaries in their target setting as long as those subsidiaries are located in Luxembourg.
How can The Diversity Charter Lëtzebuerg and the WiF Charter coexist?
Although with distinct targets and actions, both Charters share the goal of enhancing and embracing increased diversity and inclusion within organizations, at all levels. While the Diversity Charter Lëtzebuerg has a broader scope covering the EU non-discrimination criteria and beyond, across multiple sectors, the WiF Charter takes a focused approach, concentrating its efforts on achieving gender parity in Luxembourg’s financial sector.
For this reason, they are complementary.
The Diversity Charter Lëtzebuerg - IMS
The Diversity Charter Lëtzebuerg is a national commitment text proposed for signature to any organisation in Luxembourg wishing to commit to diversity promotion and management through concrete actions that go beyond legal. Seven privilege partners, Deutsche Bank, Caceis Investor Services, HSBC Luxembourg, Linklaters, PwC and Sodexo, support the Charter, alongside IMS Luxembourg, as the driving force. With its foundation in 6 articles, the Charter steers organisations in the implementation of practices that promote cohesion and social equity through networks, workshops and conferences, involving all their employees and partners. More details on the Diversity Charter Lëtzebuerg can be found here.
IMS – Inspiring More Sustainability – is a non-profit organization, and Luxembourg’s leading network for Sustainable Development. IMS’ mission is to inspire responsible strategies and practices among national economic actors. The non-profit supports its members through collaborative and federating projects by promoting dialogue with stakeholders (private, public, associative), and ensures the day-to-day coordination and promotion of the Diversity Charter Lëtzebuerg.
