BOSTON (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co (N:WFC) pays female and racial minority employees very close to what male and white employees earn, an executive said, making the bank the third top U.S. lender to detail its pay ratios in recent weeks.
Mike Branca, head of compensation for the San Francisco bank, said in a telephone interview late on Wednesday that according to recent analysis of its U.S. employees, women earn more than 99 cents for every dollar earned by male peers, and minorities earn more than 99 cents for every dollar earned by their white peers.
The ratios have been similar in recent years, Branca said, and account for factors like job tenure and geography.
Wells Fargo has 265,000 employees overall, primarily in the United States. According to its latest disclosures, 57 percent of its workers are women, including 37 percent of its top executives.
Since mid-January Citigroup (N:C) and Bank of America (N:BAC) each have said that women and minorities earned 99 percent of what their male and white peers earned in the United States and in other countries.
All three banks and others have been under pressure to give the figures from activist investor Arjuna Capital. Arjuna Managing Partner Natasha Lamb said she plans to withdraw a shareholder resolution at Wells Fargo for this spring's annual meeting. But she hopes the bank and others will disclose more details such pay ratios within job levels and the median pay of women and men across the entire company.
Asked about the further details, Branca said the bank will "continue to look at that and see how that contributes to the conversation."
