Morgan Stanley and UBS Group’s Australian operations are paying male staff over 40 per cent more than women on average, according to company level data released by the Australian government for the first time on Tuesday (Feb 26).

Units of Barrenjoey Capital Partners and Bank of America also have median gender pay gaps of a similar magnitude, in a sign of how deeply compensation differentials are entrenched in the finance industry despite years of high-profile diversity initiatives intended to narrow the chasm.

Similar disclosure programmes in other countries have also shown substantial gaps: in Japan, for example, women working for top banks earn little more than half the amount of their male colleagues.

“Meaningful and sustainable change will take time,” Morgan Stanley Australia chief executive officer Richard Wagner said in an emailed statement, adding that the company is committed to addressing the gender pay gap “through development, retention and promotion of more women into senior roles.”

UBS declined to comment in advance of the report’s formal publication. Barrenjoey and BofA’s Merrill Lynch Australia didn’t respond to requests for comment. 

Overall, the median remuneration gap across the financial and insurance services sector – a calculation which includes pension payments and bonuses – was 26 per cent, data from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency shows. That was the second-largest gap of all sectors analysed, after construction. 

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The figures are part of a new, annual release of pay differentials for all companies with 100 or more local employees. The data excludes the compensation of CEOs and heads of business. 

Other top shelf names with pay gaps above the sector average include Goldman Sachs Australia, Citigroup Australia, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac Banking. While local stalwarts with better pay ratios than the rest of the industry include Australia & New Zealand Banking Group at 23 per cent and Macquarie Group at 22 per cent. National Australia Bank fared best out of the big Australian names with a median gap of 19 per cent – in line with the overall national average across all industries. 

“Transparency and accountability are critical for driving change,” said Finance Minister Katy Gallagher. “We are arming individuals and organisations with the evidence they need to take meaningful action to accelerate closing the gender pay gap in Australian workplaces.”

A full breakdown of all employer data is available on WGEA’s website.

“In finance we have this very male hierarchy,” said Carol Kulik, a professor at the University of South Australia who researches workplace diversity. “So a lot of times gender pay gaps, on the whole – not in like-for-like jobs – result from gender leadership gaps.” 

Spokespeople for CBA and Westpac both said their gender pay gaps were influenced by the proportion of female employees in customer services and operational roles. CBA said such roles were “typically” lower paid and it’s working to increase the proportion of women in more senior and higher paying positions. Westpac said it had increased female leadership in the past year and was making progress in closing the pay gap.

NAB’s executive for people and culture, Sarah White said the bank had made “solid progress” to gender representation targets and pay equity in 2023 “but acknowledge there is more work to do.” ANZ Group’s executive for talent and culture Elisa Clements said its gender pay gap had improved by 5 percentage points in the last two years. “While we’re pleased with our progress, we know we have more to do to increase the representation of women in senior and higher-paying roles, which is the driver of our pay gap.”

Goldman Sachs declined to comment. Macquarie didn’t respond to a request for comment. BLOOMBERG