Canada's top banks lead the world in executive gender diversity, GlobalData study finds

GlobalData’s Retail Banker International writer Evie Rusman analysed how some of the top retail banks measure up when it comes to gender diversity, and found that for Canadian banks, 28 of 71 board members are female, a percentage of 39.5%. Canada’s largest bank by assets RBC fronted the results with a promising 42.9% of female directors. Next is Scotiabank, who has five women in directorial positions out of 13, a percentage of 38.5%.

Following closely behind Canada, is the UK with 37.9% female directors (25 of 66) across its five biggest banks. Out of the UK banks surveyed, RBS leads the way as 46.2% of boardroom members are female (six of 13). HSBC has six of 14 (42.9%) female directors; Barclays four of 12 (33.3%); Lloyds four of 13 (30.8%); and Standard Chartered five of 14 (35.7%). These figures show a massive upturn in the UK’s retail banking sector as in 2013, across the top five retail banks, only 18.4% of board members were female.

France ranks third in terms of gender diversity – across the top five retail banks, 26 out of 79 of directors are female, a percentage of 32.9%. This is an improvement from 2013, where the percentage across the five biggest banks was 30.9%. Out of the five French banks surveyed, BNP Paribas scored joint highest with six of 14 (42.9%) of its directors being female.

Out of all the countries surveyed, Spain’s retail banking sector is the worst when it comes to gender diversity – just 23.3% (17 out of 73) of board directors across the country’s top five banks are female. Despite a poor show overall from Spain, CaixaBank performed considerably well with 6 of 18 (33.3%) female directors, according to its website. In addition, Banco Santander also scored highly with 37.5% (six out of 16) female directors.

Germany ranked the second lowest – collectively, across Germany’s top five banks 30.2% (29 of 96) of directors are women.

DZ Bank is the only bank to have just one female on its board of directors. This brings its female directorial percentage to 14.3%. However, Commerzbank shows more promise with eight female directors out of 20, a percentage of 40%.