Allica Bank’s 2025 gender pay gap report

The gender pay gap is the difference in average earnings between men and women across a company. It’s not the same as equal pay, but it’s an important way to understand how balanced an organisation is, particularly at different levels of seniority.

Any company with 250 or more employees must report this data. For us, it’s more than a requirement. It’s a way to hold ourselves accountable and track whether what we’re doing is actually working.

This is our third year of reporting, and we’re really pleased that we’ve continued to make progress. But we’re not where we want to be yet.

Allica’s gender pay gap: the headline

The data shows that the action we’ve taken to improve our gender pay gap has been working, but there’s still more to do.

Our mean and median pay gaps have both reduced again, which is encouraging and shows we’re moving in the right direction. At the same time, our bonus gap has increased, and we need to be clear about why.

Our overall pay gap

We’ve reduced both our mean and median pay gaps for the second year running:

• Mean pay gap: reduced from 23.3% in 2024 to 19.4% in 2025

• Median pay gap: reduced from 35.2% in 2024 to 24.8% in 2025

This is meaningful progress in a relatively short period of time. It reflects a combination of hiring and development decisions across the business.

But while these reductions are positive, the gaps are still larger than we’d like them to be. Closing them further remains a focus.

Our gender split by pay quartiles

We’ve continued to improve female representation in our higher pay quartiles:

• The proportion of women in senior roles has increased, driven by both external hiring and internal progression

• During the reporting period, 43 female colleagues were promoted, representing 14.2% of our female workforce

This matters because the overall pay gap is heavily influenced by how many men and women are in senior roles. As more women move into higher-paying positions, the gap reduces.

We’re encouraged by this progress, but we need to keep building on it.

Our bonus gap

Our bonus gap has increased this year:

• Mean bonus gap: 37% (up from 35.2% in 2024)
• Median bonus gap: 40.1% (up from 37.1% in 2024)

There are a few key reasons for this:

• We have a higher proportion of men in sales roles, which typically have larger bonus opportunities.

• We also have more men in senior roles, where bonuses are higher.

• Some colleagues choose to sacrifice a proportion of their bonus into their pension, and part of our bonus is sometimes paid in shares, neither of which is fully reflected in these figures.

So while the numbers have increased, they don’t tell the full story. That said, the underlying drivers are clear, and reducing this gap depends on improving gender balance in senior and revenue-generating roles.

The structural challenges we face

Some of the factors behind our pay gap are specific to Allica, while others reflect the wider fintech industry:

• Higher-paying roles, particularly in product, data and technology, still have uneven gender representation.

• As a growing fintech, we continue to hire heavily in these areas.

• We’ve also expanded our technology hiring in India, while gender pay gap reporting only covers UK employees.

This means our UK data won’t always reflect the full picture of our workforce. But it doesn’t change our responsibility to improve gender balance where we can.

Where we’re seeing progress

There are clear signs that our approach is working:

• Female representation has increased across key areas:

  • Product up 15%

  • Distribution up 6%

  • Technology up 2%

• In our most recent colleague survey, only 4% of female colleagues felt Allica was not demographically diverse.

We’ve also seen strong engagement in initiatives designed to support female colleagues.

In 2025, we launched our EmpowHER network, bringing colleagues together to share experiences, build confidence and support career development.

It’s also been great to see colleagues recognised externally, including Tigana Sari who was named as the winner of the ‘Rising Star’ category in the Open Banking Awards 2025.

How we’re continuing to improve

The actions we outlined last year remain in place, and we’re continuing to build on them.

Our focus is on:

• Developing our existing female talent into senior roles

• Supporting progression through our management foundations and leadership development programmes

• Continuing to ensure there is no bias in our hiring and decision-making through unconscious bias training for colleagues and managers

• Supporting flexible and hybrid working to make roles more accessible

• Backing initiatives like our EmpowHER network to support and retain female colleagues

We remain committed to our Women in Finance Charter targets:

• 45% female representation across the business by the end of 2026

• 35% female representation in senior management by the end of 2026

We’re making progress, but we’re not done

We’re encouraged by the progress we made in 2025. The direction of travel is clear, and that matters.

But we’re not where we want to be yet.

Reducing the gender pay gap takes time, consistency and focus – especially in an industry where some of the underlying challenges are structural.

We’ll keep doing the work, keep measuring the results, and keep being open about where we are.