Women in Finance Charter

Progress is being made under the HM Treasury Women in Finance target

A balanced and diverse workforce is good for business, helping create fairer and more inclusive working environments which boost creativity and productivity, ultimately better serving everyone from customers to shareholders. Recognising this, UK Finance, the body that represents more than 250 of the leading firms providing finance, banking, markets and payments-related services in or from the UK, is a signatory to the HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter.

The Women in Finance Charter is a commitment by HM Treasury and 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.

The core Charter pledges for promoting gender diversity comprise:

• Having one member of our senior executive team who is responsible and accountable for gender diversity and inclusion
• Setting internal targets for gender diversity in our senior management
• Publishing progress annually against these targets in reports on our website
• Having an intention to ensure the pay of the senior executive team is linked to delivery against these internal targets on gender diversity

In signing up to the Charter in November 2017, following discussion within our Board, we set ourselves the target of achieving 40 per cent female representation within senior management over three years, also aspiring to achieve gender parity over the medium term. In providing our September 2019 update to HM Treasury, we reported that female representation within our senior management stood at 37 per cent - in comparison to 30 per cent at the time of our signing up - and that we were confident of achieving our 40 per cent target within the three-year timeframe set. Our aspiration to achieve gender parity over the medium term is supported by gender equality within middle management and more junior posts.

Stephen Jones, Chief Executive of UK Finance said:

UK Finance is pleased to see that the HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter has gone from strength to strength, with at the last count 350 firms employing 880,000 people signed up and can report that we are on track to meet our Charter target. 

The Charter and more recent initiatives such as the Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship and the resulting Investing in Women Code are integral to building a more equal and fair society fit for the 2020s.

UK Finance aims to attract outstanding and diverse talent to operate in a collegiate and collaborative environment. We see our commitment under the Women in Finance Charter as symbolic of the balanced and inclusive working environment needed to succeed in financial services.

We see our commitment to the Charter as emblematic of the support within financial services for the advancement of women in senior management positions and, more generally, policies intended to deliver a more equal, inclusive and diverse workplace.

In addition to putting in place policies to meet and support our core pledges, we have also committed to promoting the adoption of the Charter across the financial services industry. We are also supporters of he Investing in Women Code and represent the industry on the Investing in Women board.