The directors of public banks closed the first meeting organized by the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic (BCRA) with the commitment to promote gender areas within organizations and design institutional policies to generate more egalitarian and inclusive work environments through protocols to address violence and gender rebalancing policies. The meeting, which was held virtually and in which women who occupy leadership spaces in state financial institutions participated, also identified financial inclusion and education and the design of financial products with a gender perspective as strategic priorities to generate concrete actions.
“The meeting was comforting, which places us in the situation of the beginning of a new cycle. Working together, exchanging ideas, concepts, experiences and knowledge, it will be easier to fulfill our responsibilities in relation to the issues of institutional policies on gender and diversity in the financial system,” she explained. Claudia Berger, director of the BCRA.
The focus of the meeting was on discussing institutional gender and diversity policies in public banking. The meeting was attended by Claudia Berger and Betina Stein (BCRA), (Banco Ciudad), Laura Isabel Sprovieri (Banco de Corrientes), Adriana Velasco and Carola Pogliano (Banco del Neuquén), Raquel Kismer (BICE), Rosana Castaño (Banco de La Pampa), Cecilia Fernández Bugna (BNA), Juliana Di Tullio (Banco de la Provincia de Buenos Aires), Julia Strada (Grupo Bapro) and Cecilia Nahón (World Bank).
The conference was held on Monday, August 3 at the initiative of the BCRA’s Management of Promotion of Gender Policies, Safeguarding Respect and Labor Coexistence led by María Celeste Perosino.
“The meeting is historic. I welcome the initiative to call on women directors of public banks to reflect on the situation of women workers and the very low access to decision-making positions. This meeting begins a stage that must necessarily change stereotypes in this patriarchal world,” said Juliana Di Tullio, director of the Bank of the Province of Buenos Aires.
Julia Strada, director of the Bapro Group, also valued the call and assigned it historical importance. “It is a transcendental fact not only for the feminist movement, but fundamentally for the local financial world. Nothing like this had ever happened before. I believe that we have work on two fronts: in our institutions it is a matter of incorporating a gender perspective in boards, managements and in the group of workers through training, of the militancy of parity for its effective compliance; the other front is the insertion of the gender perspective in financial products, innovating and being creative, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, to insert women and LGBTTTIQ+ people as equitably as possible in the financial world.”
Cecilia Fernández Bugna, director of Banco de la Nación Argentina, reinforced the symbolic value of these meetings: “Women who occupy management positions within an environment almost hegemonized by men have to work together to end all forms of discrimination, closing gaps within our banks and promoting financing policies to build a fairer society.”
Another of the central points of agreement between the directors was to give continuity to this space for the construction of a joint and transversal agenda for public banking in terms of gender and diversity. There was also consensus on the urgency of generating debt reduction policies and financial products that allow women, lesbians, trans, transvestites and non-binary people to access credit under better conditions.
“It has been shown that women in poverty and people with non-binary identities are poorer and more vulnerable than men. The first, because economic dependence on men generates situations of very serious violence. The second, because of the immense difficulty in accessing the labor market for trans and transvestites, forcing them to engage in prostitution. Financial inclusion and education are tools that, when used well, are very efficient in the fight to eradicate gender-based violence and discrimination. The future productive development of the country cannot be thought of without them; without tools that guarantee them upward social mobility, which really transforms Argentine society into a more egalitarian and less discriminatory society,” said Betina Stein, director of the BCRA.
For Delfina Rossi, director of the Bank of the City of Buenos Aires, the main thing about the meeting was the opportunity to consolidate an agenda of public banking, in pursuit of economic development with a feminist perspective. “It is extremely important not only to promote women entrepreneurs, but also to have a look at women who are breadwinners, and who carry out ventures in popular neighborhoods,” Rossi said.
In the same vein, Adriana Velasco, vice president of the Bank of the Province of Neuquén, said that “generating spaces for exchange on these issues in the financial system allows us to gain time by building on shared experiences and especially oriented to an area in which we have the opportunity to be protagonists. In this first meeting, the foundations were laid for joint work.”
Carola Pogliano, alternate director of the Bank of the Province of Neuquén, emphasized the possibility of agreement. “These workspaces allow equality and gender policies to be developed in a more active and coordinated way in the face of the different realities faced within each institution,” she said.
“Spaces for exchange enhance results and make policies more effective. In particular in the financial system that has been the dominant nucleus of financialization, where statistics demonstrate the degree of patriarchy that exists, we need to act with a lot of consensus and coordination to achieve the transformations to which we aspire, to put it at the service of a national productive project with social and gender equity,” explained Raquel Cecilia Kismer. director of the Bank of Investment and Foreign Trade.
Laura Isabel Sprovieri, vice president of Banco de Corrientes, raised the need to promote inclusion. “A financial system that involves all people makes fiscal and monetary policies more efficient,” he said. This is expanding access to the financial system and therefore making it more beneficial is proportional to a greater increase in financial services.”
Cecilia Nahon, who holds the position of director at the World Bank, stressed the importance of the exchange of both national and international experiences on gender policies in the financial sector: “It is key to developing a comprehensive strategy that advances equality and inclusion both within banking institutions and in their interventions in the financial and productive sectors.”
Rosana Castaño, director of Banco de La Pampa, agreed that it is essential to move forward on differences: “Meetings such as the one proposed are extremely enriching, especially considering the participation of institutions so dissimilar in terms of size and territorial presence. Through the presentation of the paths undertaken, no financial institution can fail to address issues, such as diversity and gender. This is the way to nourish each other from individual and collective experiences.”
