A study by Financial News revealed that the gender gap in the UK’s leading financial technology companies is wider as compared to that in investment banks. Financial News notes that this is jarring especially as the fintech sector is known for being innovative. With this gender issue, the sector failed to take the opportunity to be truly disruptive, says a senior manager in the industry who chose to remain anonymous.
The law mandates that organizations with more than 250 employees should file a gender pay disparity report. According to reports by UK fintech companies, the average median pay disparity based on gender is 31.54% in 2018. Meanwhile, the asset management sector has a disparity rate of 28.33% while investment banking has 31.22%.
Zopa, a fintech company dealing with peer-to-peer lending and banking, showed a 39.1% median gap rate. Zopa Chief Executive Jaidev Janardana says that this ‘far from ideal’ situation is due to the fewer number of women in senior leadership positions. There is a far greater number of women in ‘non-technical, administrative and operational roles,’ Janardana states in a blog post. He also adds that the demographics of technology talents is significantly male.
Reports by fintech institutions Monzo, Starling, Atom and Funding Circle shows that Monzo has the lowest pay disparity with a median of 14%. Meanwhile, Starling is making substantial changes to bring their numbers down.
The gender gap issue is not only observed in wages, but also in funding. An analysis by fintech lobbyist Innovate Finance revealed that only 3% of the $1.7 billion venture funding in the UK was funnelled to companies with a minimum of one female founder. Clare Black from Innovate Finance states that of the total number of personnel in fintech, below one-thirds of it are female.
