Gender equality

Our Group Chief Executive, Bill Winters, signed a statement of support for the United Nations Women Empowerment Principles, in April 2018. These seven principles underpin the work we are already committed to which supports women in the workplace, marketplace and community.

The Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) is a joint initiative of UN Women and the UN Global Compact. They are a set of seven principles for business, offering guidance on how to empower women in the workplace, marketplace and community:

• Principle 1 – Establish hi-level corporate leadership for gender equality
• Principle 2 – Treat all women and men fairly at work – respect and support human rights and non-discrimination
• Principle 3 – Ensure the health and safety and wellbeing of all women and men workers
• Principle 4 – Promote education, training and professional development for women
• Principle 5 – Implement enterprise development, supply chain and market practices that empower women
• Principle 6 – Promote equality through community initiatives and advocacy
• Principle 7 – Measure and publicly report on progress to achieve gender equality

In 2016, we signed the UK HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter to further progress the gender agenda and work together to build a more balanced and fair industry.

The pledge includes:

1. Having one member of our senior executive team who is responsible and accountable for gender diversity and inclusion.
2. Setting internal targets for gender diversity in our senior management.
3. Publishing progress annually against these targets in reports on our website.
4. Having an intention to ensure the pay of the senior executive team is linked to delivery against these internal targets on gender diversity.

Since signing the UK HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter in 2016, we’ve seen a positive trend of women taking up senior leadership roles, increasing from 25 per cent to 33 per cent at the end of December 2025. We continue to take meaningful steps towards advancing gender equality and strengthening our senior leadership talent pipeline through our people processes and development initiatives, including targeted sponsorship and recruitment campaigns. By the end of December 2028, we are now targeting a 35 per cent global senior women leadership representation.

EDGE is the leading global standard for workplace gender and intersectional equity, offering a comprehensive, independent framework to assess gender balance, pay equity, and the effectiveness of inclusion policies and practices.

We are really proud to be the first financial institution in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Sri Lanka to receive this.

In 2025 we were included in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index for the tenth year in a row.