Compensation policy

The compensation policy is one of the three founding principles of the Human Project: empowering employees, strengthening customer relations and fostering an atmosphere of trust.

The components of compensation for employees and executive managers are determined on the basis of precise, clear criteria that reflect competencies required, seniority and individual and group performance attained in terms of the organisation’s responsibility for sustainability. Every employee receives all or part of these components based on their level of responsibility, skills and performance.

The Chairman of the Board of Directors receives only fixed compensation.
Executive corporate officers’ annual compensation includes an immediate portion and a deferred portion awarded in the form of instruments that vest subject to the fulfilment of performance and employment conditions. It breaks down as follows.

The compensation policy for executive corporate officers is designed primarily to recognise long-term performance and the effective implementation of the Group’s strategic plan. In line with the company’s social focus, this policy goes beyond short-term business results to take sustainable performance aspects into account.

Each year, the compensation policy is reviewed and approved by the Board of Directors, acting on the Compensation Committee’s recommendations, and its principles alongside the amounts awarded and paid for the year ended are presented annually to shareholders for approval at the General Meeting.

The variable compensation policy for executive corporate officers was aligned with the “Ambitions 2025” Medium-Term Plan, which reaffirms Crédit Agricole S.A.’s commitment to integrating Corporate social Responsibility (CSR) into its overall strategy. Since 2023, the weighting of CSR performance criteria in the allocation of the annual variable compensation of executive corporate officers has been harmonised for the Chief Executive Officer and the Deputy Chief Executive Officers and increased to 20%. These criteria have also been reviewed for the vesting of long-term variable compensation in order to better integrate the Group’s commitments to contribute to carbon neutrality by 2050, as well as those in favour of diversity.

These new measures, which have applied to executive corporate officers since 2023, have been rolled out to the Group’s other executives.

Annual variable compensation

The overall performance of each executive corporate officer is assessed on the basis of a balance between financial and non-financial performance. Their annual variable compensation is 60% based on financial criteria and 40% based on non-financial criteria, with CSR accounting for 20%, defined each year by the Board of Directors, on the recommendation of the Compensation Committee.

Long-term variable compensation

Executive Corporate Officers qualify for the free allocation of performance shares, within the framework of a budget strictly limited to 0.1% of share capital, in order to strengthen their contribution to the creation of long-term value of Crédit Agricole S.A.

The number of shares awarded each year by the Board of Directors is capped at 20% of annual fixed compensation. The vesting of these shares will be conditioned in particular by the achievement of three demanding economic, stock market, environmental and societal performance conditions, assessed over a period of five years. The vesting will be followed by a one-year lock-up period. The Chief Executive Officer and the Deputy Chief Executive Officers are required to retain 30% of the shares vested each year while in office.

In addition, from 2023 onwards, with a view to aligning interests more closely with shareholders, the maximum overall achievement rate for the three combined performance conditions has been raised to 120% (compared with 100% in previous years), thus creating the possibility of outperformance.