More diversity: British financial regulator introduces quota for women in listed companies

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In the future there will be stricter women and diversity quotas for the management floors of the largest companies on the London stock exchanges.

Photo: Tomas Rodriguez/Getty Images

The British financial market supervisory authority wants to bring more women into management positions in listed companies with specific targets.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced on Wednesday that 40 percent of top corporate management positions must be held by women.

Listed companies must also report annually on how they comply with the new regulations and justify deviations from them.

The new regulations apply to reporting periods from April 1 of this year.

This means that companies will provide information on this starting with their annual reports in early 2023.

According to the new rules, at least one position in the group management, such as the CEO or the CFO, should be occupied by a woman in the future.

At least one top management position should be given to a member of a non-white ethnic minority.

The financial market authority also announced that it would review the rules after three years to ensure that the diversity goals are still appropriate.

The supervisors had presented corresponding drafts last July.

No major changes were made to the original plans.

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In Germany there is a quota system for supervisory boards, where 30 percent of the seats must be occupied by women.

Although a women's quota for the top floors of large companies will not be introduced until this August, according to a DIW study, the proportion of women on executive boards has already increased significantly.

In the fourth quarter of last year there were 139 women on the executive board of the 200 companies in Germany with the highest turnover.

Around every seventh board member in the top 200 companies is a woman.

That was 38 more than in the previous year, as the current DIW female manager barometer shows.

faq/Reuters