PensionBee has reduced its median hourly gender pay gap to 4 per cent, in line with its aim of achieving equality with a variance of 5 per cent permitted due to the overall size of the employee base.

The pension provider, which also noted it had a median bonus pay gap of 0 per cent among its staff, said it had achieved gender employment parity across all levels of its business, while figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that just 43 per cent of employees in the UK financial services industry were women in December 2020.

Meanwhile, ONS figures show that the gender pay gap among all employees in the UK was 15.5 per cent in 2020, a reduction from 17.4 per cent in the year before but a far wider gap than PensionBee achieved.

The news comes after PensionBee signed the FinTech for All Charter, an industry-led initiative which aims to promote diversity within the FinTech sector through signatories committing to measures such as having one member of the senior executive team accountable for diversity and inclusion and providing a range of appropriate reporting channels to help employees speak up.

The provider also took the opportunity to highlight its diverse workforce, noting that 16 per cent of its employees identified as LGBTQA+, compared to 3 per cent across the UK, while almost two-fifths self-identified their racial or ethnic background as Asian/Asian British; Black, African, Caribbean, or Black British; mixed, multiple or other ethnic groups, compared to 13 per cent nationwide.

PensionBee CEO, Romi Savova, said: “I’m immensely proud of the level of diversity we’ve achieved within PensionBee, and have no doubt there’s a direct correlation to our low gender pay gap. We know that where a pay gap exists for women, a pension gap will follow, so we’re passionate about campaigning for wage equality.

“Promoting diversity and inclusion within our team culture and hiring processes is a key focus of PensionBee, and echoes our commitment to achieving wider representation and equality in financial services. We want our team to be reflective of our customer base, and for our team to be the rule, rather than the exception in the industry. Pensions are for everyone, so the industry needs to reflect that and provide equal pay for equal work.

“We decided to start reporting our pay gap voluntarily because we believe it’s important for companies to start tracking these metrics as early as possible and, if necessary, while changes are easier to make.”

The provider has made gender equality in pensions a special focus, with recent research released in March noting that the gender pension gap among self-employed retirement savers was smaller than for those who worked under an employer.

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