One bank representative oscillated between challenging the data Emolument provided — which, in fairness to him, may not be perfect — and pointing out that the gender pay gap is a wider issue than just investment banking.
Indeed it is, but that is no excuse for investment banks' behaviour — an industry that prides itself on housing some of the brightest, well qualified and most confident women and men. If you can’t make this work, who can?
Several other banks approached refused to comment, as if ignoring it would make it go away.
Only one took the step of assuring us that something was being done. But the spokesman wouldn’t tell us what.
Banking has already taken, and is still taking, great strides in recruiting women and promoting them alongside men of equal talent, and for that it should be applauded.
But it seems self-evident that for the gender pay gap to be closed in banking, the first step is accepting that there is a problem and putting some system in place to counter it. When that is done in a satisfactory manner, we assume the banks will be more chatty.
In the meantime, as suggested by several recent campaigns, women might do well to cast aside their concerns about talking about money and ask men in equivalent jobs and of equivalent experience how much they earn. Nothing is stopping them arming themselves with that knowledge and then doing battle themselves with management if necessary.
David Cameron, the UK prime minister, seems to understand the need for transparency on this issue. He is expected to bring forward rules to make firms with more than 250 workers reveal whether they pay men more than women. That change is expected in the first half of next year.
In the meantime, the next round’s on you gentlemen. And the one after that.