As the wealth management sector prepares to level the gender playing field, a handful of financial institutions sign up to the Women in Finance Charter.

A number of banking and wealth management firms have signed up to the Women in Finance Charter - a set of commitments in promoting equality in the workplace and coming amid intensifying focus on how to improve gender equality in the sector.

The signatories are Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, Brooks Macdonald, Ellis Davies Financial Planning, Evolution Financial Planning, First Wealth, Franklin Templeton Investments, GAM, Grant Thornton, Investec Asset Management, JP Morgan, Kames Capital, Lazard Asset Management, Magenta Financial Planning, Nomura International, PIMCO, St. James’s Place and Sussex Independent Financial Advisers.

This means that the charter now covers over 760,000 financial services employees from 272 firms in the UK. The UK Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter asks financial services firms to commit to four industry actions to prepare their female talent for leadership positions. 

As separately reported here, Heather Brilliant, CFA, has been elected the new chair and Diane C Nordin, CFA, the vice chair of the board of governors of CFA Institute, a move that the organisation has hailed as an example of women's advancement in the financial services industry.

Commitments
By signing the charter, financial services firms commit to implementing the following:

1. Have one member of the senior executive team who is responsible and accountable for gender and diversity and inclusion;
2. Set internal targets for gender diversity within senior management;
3. Publish progress reports yearly against those targets; and
4. Intend to ensure that senior executive team pay is linked to delivery against those internal targets on gender diversity.

In March, this publication reported that a handful of firms had signed up to the charter. WealthBriefing has also issued research on women's issues within the wealth management industry, see here.

A particular issue has been that of the so-called "pay gap" and whether differences in pay between men and women need to be corrected by legislation and other action. Some of the claims about such gaps, and why they exist, have been challenged, however, such as by the Institute of Economic Affairs, the free market think tank.