HSBC: Commit to fair and transparent pay practices

With a mean gender pay gap of 55%, HSBC Bank has the highest gender pay gap in the FTSE 100 and one of the highest within the financial sector.

HSBC’s approach to ensuring equal pay appears to be to retroactively make adjustments after unequal pay has been identified, but we would like them to ensure that they are building a fair and transparent pay structure that protects women and other minoritised groups from the risk of pay discrimination.

Join us in asking Ian Stuart, CEO of HSBC UK, to take crucial steps to minimise the potential for pay discrimination and ensure that women working at HSBC receive equal pay for equal work. Together, we can flood Ian Stuart’s inbox with emails urging the bank to adopt a range of measures to prevent pay discrimination and design out inequality.

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Dear Mr Stuart,
I am writing to you in your capacity as CEO of HSBC UK to implore you to take action to address gender pay inequality.
As you are aware, the mean gender pay gap at HSBC Bank plc for 2019/20 is a shocking 55%. This statistic clearly points to an issue with career progression for women at HSBC that you have acknowledged in your gender pay gap reports. What is more concerning, however, is the company’s assertion that there is “no bias towards an individual’s gender, ethnicity, age or any other characteristic” in awarding pay, with little evidence to support this. It is questionable whether monitoring pay and making adjustments when differences are identified, as you have outlined in your most recent narrative report, is a substitute for having a pay structure designed to prevent gender pay discrimination from occurring. Moreover, HSBC continues to use pay practices considered “high-risk” by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, such as advertising jobs without an associated pay rate.
In order to minimise the potential for pay discrimination, I am asking you to commit to a number of measures to design out “horizontal” pay inequality across the workforce, as suggested by The Equality Trust:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Undertaking and publishing a measure of the company’s gender pay gap by grade.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Eliminating elements of HSBC’s pay and reward structures defined as “high-risk” by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;">Adopting a policy of salary transparency, or alternatively, a contractual policy of a ‘right to know’.</li>
</ul>
On The Equality Trust’s recommendation, Landsec has agreed to undertake horizontal pay gap reporting for 2021, meanwhile, many of your competitors are actively calling on the Government to introduce mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting. You have an opportunity to either pave the way for FTSE 100 companies making real steps towards pay equality or risk being left behind.
I would appreciate it if you could respond to my email, copying in The Equality Trust at info@equalitytrust.org.uk, and outlining the steps you intend to take to address our shared concerns.

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HSBC: Commit to fair and transparent pay practices