Financiers in the UK urged to increase diversity in the workforce

• Aparna Sreevalsan
• 11 October, 2023

A NEW DIVERSITY code for financial professionals in the UK was unveiled today (11) by the US-based organisation Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute, a global body for financial sector qualifications.

The code was released in the midst of regulatory pressure to increase the proportion of women and people of colour in the workforce.

An edition of the voluntary code has already been released by the CFA Institute in the US and Canada.

Over 160 investment institutions have embraced it thus far in the US and Canada.

The UK version of the code is built based on six principles that include growing a diverse talent pool, recruiting practices that support diversity, making sure that promotions and retention support diversity advancement, monitoring, and reporting on success, and adapting the code to local laws and practices.

It doesn’t establish timelines or targets.

Approximately 12,000 of the 200,000 members of the CFA Institute globally are in Britain.

Signatories to the code will provide a confidential, annual progress report to the CFA Institute, which will report industry-wide figures once a critical mass of signatories is reached.

It follows well-established and funded programmes like the HM Treasury’s Women in Finance charter, but with varying degrees of success.

Britain’s six-year push to raise the proportion of women in senior management at financial institutions was “stagnating” for the first time, according to a June 2022 evaluation by the HM Treasury.

Sarah Maynard, global senior head, external diversity, equity and inclusion, CFA Institute said: “The regulator sets the mandatory baseline, we can look to aspirational goals.”

Large banks and insurers now need to set aims to increase diversity and inclusion, according to new rules recently suggested by the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority of Britain.

According to Maynard, the code also included topics that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) does not currently cover, such equity, or the fairness of access and promotion for employees with less advantaged upbringings or educational backgrounds.