The Charter was established in 2016 by the HM Treasury and is a commitment by them and the signatory firms to work together to build a more balanced and fair financial services industry. The Charter was introduced following the ‘Empowering Productivity’ report into harnessing the talents of women in finance.  

In its Annual Review published in June, the Women in Finance Charter found that 78% of signatory firms are already meeting or are on track to meet their targets with regards to female representation at boardroom level, with almost half the firms being committed to achieve a +40% boardroom made-up of women. Economic Secretary to the Treasury, John Glen said in the report: “Diverse representation and gender equality in the financial services sector is good for business, good for investors and reduces barriers to growth and enterprise.”

Over the past few years initiatives have been done to remove or at least reduce the barriers to entry and promotion, however at C-Suite level there appears to have been slow progress to meet gender equality. In fact, in 2020 only 9.7% of CEOs in 181 surveyed banks and building societies in the UK were women businesses according to a Bank of England study. The FCA since having introduced gender diversity targets and mandatory reporting of a number of key stats with regards to meeting gender targets which have to be provided in the Annual Reports, including a requirement to explain any failure to meet these targets.

Tracy Fletcher, Managing Director of Campbell & Fletcher Recruitment, commented, 

“It really is important that companies look to address the imbalance. It is great to see many financial institutions resetting internal targets and creating initiatives to address a lack of diversity in their teams through eliminating bias when recruiting. We are seeing some improvements albeit in small steps, with now 1 in 4 of our appointments at Senior Management level now female.”

She Added,

“We all know high levels of diversity in the workplace are proven to better engage employees, alongside evidence that businesses with high levels of gender diversity financially outperform their competition.”

For more information about the Women in Finance Charter contact Tracy Fletcher on tracy@cfrecruitment.co.uk