Andy Mukherjee, Columnist

Asian Banking Has a Problem With Women

Board representation is miserably low in most countries.

March 8, 2017 at 6:50 AM UTC

Andy Mukherjee is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies and financial services in Asia. Previously, he worked for Reuters, the Straits Times and Bloomberg News.

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

France and South Korea are both members of the rich nations' club that goes by the clunky name Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD. Measured by the participation of women in their banking and finance industries, they couldn't be further apart.

Among the 23 Korean companies for which Bloomberg has a breakdown of board and workforce composition, Samsung Card Co. has the highest female representation in the top echelons. One of its six directors is a woman. But Samsung Card is a $4 billion company. The board of $19 billion Shinhan Financial Group Co. is a men-only institution.