BCG Study: Why Women Still Earn Less in Banks

In the preamble to the coalition agreement, the new government set itself an important goal for the next few years: the maxim is a free society in which equality between women and men is achieved. In many areas of the economy this is still a long way off - including the financial sector. In an evaluation by the management consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in 2020, the 50 largest European banks listed on the stock exchange were rated in terms of balanced representation on the management board and supervisory board and the remuneration of men and women. This resulted in a ranking - of which BCG only lists the first ten banks on the list. It is said that one deliberately wanted to emphasize the positive examples and not brand the bad ones.

The evaluation focused on publicly available data.

A bank could achieve a maximum of 100 points.

That would be the case if the management board and the supervisory board were made up of women and men and there were no differences in remuneration - no bank has achieved that.

Under these conditions, DNB Bank from Norway was rated best (83 points), followed by Bankinter from Spain (81 points) and ABN Amro Bank from the Netherlands (80 points).

Commerzbank made it into the top ten of the two major German banks listed on the stock exchange.

The last place received only 26 points.

Women earn an average of 75 percent less

The proportion of women on the executive boards was just 19 percent. Only five women headed the board of directors, only two headed the supervisory body. Ten of the 50 banks rated even managed without women on the board. They earned an average of 75 percent less than their male colleagues, and 80 percent less on the supervisory board.

There are two components that had an impact on the results, says Jan Koserski, co-author of the BCG analysis. On the one hand, the banks are a reflection of the countries in which they are based. It is no coincidence that two out of three Scandinavian banks make the top ten - one of them in first place. The regulators in the Nordic countries set clearer guidelines regarding equality between men and women. Just referring to the country, however, cannot be an excuse for the banks, says Koserski. This can also be seen in the counterexample, the Spanish bankinter. One is country-specific, the other is what the bank does itself.

Claudia Rasper, also author of the study, explains why the salary gap sometimes gaps so wide by saying that the salary at management level reflects relevance.

The best paid are, of course, those who are at the top of the board of directors and the supervisory board.

However, relatively few women are represented there.

The more relevant positions are held by men, says Rasper.

The salary on the supervisory board is made up of the various committees on which you sit.

Few women at the head of a board of directors

If, for example, a woman moves up to the supervisory board, she often sits on two less important committees, while the man sits on the five more relevant and thus more highly paid committees.

There are also country-specific peculiarities: In some control bodies there are not only external employee representatives, but also internal ones.

If you then have to meet a certain quota, internal staffing is often the easiest way, but it pays less.

It's often about meeting the quotas as quickly as possible, says Rasper.

However, this is not a banking-specific problem.

Women are seen more as a "hygiene factor".

One often takes the woman on the board in order to comply with regulations.

On the other hand, banks, which see women not only as that, but as a competitive factor, also offer women jobs that are compatible with part-time work.

The problem is often not that too few women apply who also have good opportunities for advancement there, says co-author Koserski.

Rather, the problem is that many women basically cannot imagine staying in the professional environment of a bank for long.

Also because many are still of the opinion that management positions are not compatible with more flexible working time models or even with the blocking of hours for childcare.