Barclays Plc pays its female investment bankers just under half that of male colleagues on average, highlighting the chronic gender imbalances in the industry and the concentration of men in highly paid roles.
The gender pay gap widens to 79 percent for discretionary bonuses paid to employees at its international unit, which houses the corporate and investment bank, said the London-based company, the first major bank with British operations to disclose such data. At the U.K. ring-fenced bank, women earn 26 percent less than men and receive bonuses that are 60 percent lower, according to the lender’s annual report.
“We are dedicated to enabling women to fulfill their career aspirations,” Barclays said in the filing on Thursday. “To achieve this goal and thereby narrow our gender pay gap, we will continue to focus on ensuring there is no bias in the hiring, promotion, development and retention of women at Barclays."
So far, fewer than 1,200 companies have provided the newly required disclosures, out of more than 9,000 estimated to be eligible, according to a government website. Banks including HSBC Holdings Plc, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. are yet to disclose their numbers. Firms with 250 employees or more in Britain have until April 4 to report the difference between what men and women earn.
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The disparity in Barclays’s gender pay is exacerbated by a disproportionate number of men in senior positions at the bank. There is only one woman on Barclays’s nine-member group executive committee, Laura Padovani, who is the firm’s interim chief compliance officer.
"There’s no silver bullet; for banks and City firms it’s about getting more women established in senior executive roles, so they can in turn embed a culture that’s more attuned to the needs of both women and men," said Dominie Moss, founder of The Return Hub, which places women returning from career breaks in financial-services jobs.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.