UK banks’ gender and ethnicity pay gaps widen as progress ‘too slow’

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. HSBC’s UK business revealed the widest gender pay gap of the big banks, with women earning just over half the hourly pay that men earn on average. “The increase in the 2021 variable pay pool, in particular in higher-paying businesses when combined with an imbalance in representation, contributed to the widening of our gender pay gap in 2022”, HSBC said. “A few targets here and there doesn’t seem to be enough.” He added: “It is a tough look for banks when they are making such big profits off the back of interest rate rises which are going to cripple a lot of people, and they have still got a lot of low-paid staff.” Barclays, meanwhile, showed its ethnicity pay gap between black and white staff had widened last year, despite doubling the number of black managing directors in the UK. What’s clear is that our focus needs to be on creating an organisation that is more agile and reflects the social and demographic changes we are seeing.” Meanwhile, NatWest Bank managed to reduce its median gender pay gap by 2.6 percentage points to 31.6% last year, but saw its bonus gap increase by 5 percentage points to 17.5%.