Zopa warns Covid-19 has made it challenging to meet gender diversity targets

Zopa has warned that it will be more difficult to meet its gender diversity targets because of slower growth this year due to the Covid-19 crisis.

In 2018, the ‘big three’ consumer peer-to-peer lending platform signed the Women in Finance Charter, which encourages companies to have at least 33 per cent women in senior management.

Zopa said even though the platform is committing to driving progress towards the target, it will be challenging to meet it by December 2021 because of experiencing slower growth than forecasted this year due to the pandemic.

Read more: P2P can benefit from diverse recruitment opportunities

“We are committed to getting closer to our December 2021 target and will continue to make improvements to ensure our workforce is diverse and that we provide equal opportunities to everyone,” Zopa said in a blog on its website.

While the number of women in senior roles at the platform dropped slightly from 38 per cent in 2019 to 35 per cent in 2020, Zopa said it has improved its gender diversity in the company over the last year.

The platform has increased the percentage of females it employs from 37 per cent in 2019 to 40 per cent in 2020.

In addition, the percentage of female representation on Zopa’s board has risen from 31 per cent to 36 per cent and across its executive committee, from 38 per cent to 43 per cent.

Read more: Fintech leaders launch Fintech for All Charter

Zopa highlighted the actions it will continue to take to drive gender diversity.

Some of these include decoding job adverts to remove gender bias, ensuring its interviews have diverse panels and its candidate lists are diverse.

“A balanced and diverse workforce is important to Zopa,” the platform said in a blog on its website.

“We strongly believe in creating a fair and inclusive working environment across race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, disability and gender.”

Read more: Zopa Bank savings product wins ‘excellent’ rating