This inequality must be reduced

The story on page 4 highlights how some parts of the market, particularly I am sad to note London, remain woefully unrepresentative of the wider workforce. In a city that prides itself on its inclusivity and diversity, the still largely white, male face of the world's biggest FX market needs to be changed.

It is true that certain historical and social forces have led to the existing demographic of the forex market's workforce. These help to explain why, for example, the situation is so much fairer in, say Canada than it is in London. The UK's capital markets are the oldest and in many ways the most conservative. Newer financial centres are bound to have more progressive hiring policies.

But the picture is not all doom and gloom. There are some exceptionally talented women in the industry, and its international nature means people from many creeds are represented on trading floors.

This is refreshingly different from the UK's asset management and IFA industries that I wrote about when I worked on FX Week's sister title Investment Week. Here the demographic was more of the refined well-healed white middle class male.

How can the situation in the FX market be improved? As BMo's head of FX, Lynn Kennedy, says, the only way to attract women is to have other women working there. Those in positions to hire must take this into account. Failing to do so will be bad for business in the long term. By excluding certain sections of the population, banks, brokers and others are cutting out some of the best and brightest. Doing things how they have always been done is not good enough, particularly in the rapidly evolving world of FX.