Aldermore Bank has reported improvements in gender pay despite a difficult backdrop for challenger banks in the reporting period.
Aldemore’s Women in Finance and Gender Pay report has also highlighted a number of incentives the bank has taken to support women at the bank and in the industry.
Gender Pay regulation requires employers with more than 250 employees to report to the government and make publicly available their gender pay metrics.
Aldermore’s report is based on the period ending April 2019, before the integration of MotoNovo Finance into the Aldermore Group.
Phillip Monks, OBE, chief executive of Aldermore, said of the report: “We continue to have greater ambitions for women in senior leadership roles as well as to increase diversity at leadership levels. Most recently, we were delighted to announce Claire Cordell’s (director of finance) appointment as our next group chief financial officer (subject to regulatory approval).
“Claire’s appointment to the Board as well takes female membership of our Executive Committee to 3 out of 7 people and our Board to 40%. Becky Pinkard also joined this year as our chief information security officer,” he added.
The report highlights a gender and steering committee set up to track progress and plans to deliver targets following the banks joining of the HM Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter in 2016.
The charter looks to improve gender balance across the financial services sector and supports the progression of women into senior roles.
A diversity and inclusion group has been set up at Aldermore which looks to generate a “fairer and more balanced working environment beyond gender issues alone.”
The report said Aldermore delivers their diversity and inclusion agenda through the “Big Conversation” which encourages open discussion.
Aldermore reported in the survey 79% of employees agree their immediate manager encourages an environment where individuals are valued.
The report showed since 2014 Aldermore has trained nearly 700 finance brokers through their broker training academy.
In 2018, 94 brokers were trained and 48 of those were women. In 2019, 136 brokers were trained and 66 were women.
Pay results analysis showed the mean gender pay gap improved by 0.2% from 2018 to 28.8% and the median gender pay gap improved by 0.1% from 2018 to 35.4%.
The mean bonus gap improved by 7.2% to 48.1% and the median bonus gap improved by 6.4% to 34.5%.
The results also showed 76% of women received a bonus compared to 74% of men.
Christine Palmer, chief risk officer at Aldermore concluded: “We know, first hand, greater diversity contributes to a positive culture and the benefits can be seen every day in how we interact with each other, as well as how we engage customers. That’s why we work extremely hard to ensure success in delivering, not just the charter’s targets, but also the spirit of it.”
