The Latest from Women in Banking

Despite obstacles that keep women from being equally represented in the boardroom, there are steps they can take to close the gap.

"He hasn't missed any of our diversity and inclusion councils in 10 years. It starts with him and trickles down," said Sheri Bronstein, the bank's global human resources executive.

Promoting diversity must go beyond putting women in the C-suite. It’s about creating products and practices that help support and elevate those who tend to be overlooked.

Financial institutions can take a few easy steps to ensure their leadership is more representative of their customer base, including looking outside of the industry for talent. Women and people of color are not that hard to find.

Women in the pipeline get some attention from a room full of top banking industry executives celebrating the Most Powerful Women rankings. California is the first to impose a quota requiring companies to increase the number of women on boards, and the Fortune 500’s newest female CEO starts today.

Several female executives accepted leadership roles throughout the industry and in regulatory roles during the past month.

Käthe Anchel is expected to help push Umpqua’s recent focus on what it calls the “human-digital” banking experience.

How banks and network providers combat real-time payment fraud; online banks try new pricing strategies; the Most Powerful Women in Banking call for greater leadership diversity; and more from this week's most-read stories.

The Federal Reserve System is trying to be proactive in these and other high-profile areas, offering educational materials and coaching to bank execs and directors, according to supervision officials at the St. Louis and Richmond Fed banks.

A growing number of the top lawyers at major financial institutions are women. What’s it going to take to get other departments to follow suit?