TSB fails to meet gender balance target

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50642019

Version 0 of 3.

TSB has pushed back its target for about half of its senior jobs to be held by women by up to five years.

The bank had originally pledged to meet the target by next year, but it now says this will happen before 2025.

In fact, TSB has moved further from its target as it had 41% of women in senior roles in 2017, but only 38% this year.

The bank has, however, beaten the government's target for 33% of boards to be made up of women "with a board that is 36% female".

"TSB takes gender diversity very seriously." a spokesperson told the BBC.

"We set an initial stretching target for between 45 to 55% of our senior roles to be held by women by 2020.

"We're currently at 38% and although we are making progress, we have revised our target.

"Internally, we are tracking interim targets as our ambition is to deliver on these targets before 2025."

TSB has had a difficult year and last week revealed which 82 branches it plans to close in 2020 as part of cost-cutting measures.

The closures are part of a plan by new chief executive Debbie Crosbie to save £100m by 2022. The bank said that 370 positions would be affected.

And earlier in the month, an independent report into IT failures that left 1.9 million customers unable to bank online in April 2018, blamed TSB and its IT provider Sabis.