Bank boss Tracy Garrad hopes she can be a role model for other women as they battle to shatter the ‘glass ceiling’ while climbing the career ladder.

Mother-of-two Tracy, 47, said that ‘sadly’ she knows of ‘plenty’ of other women in business who have encountered problems such as sexist attitudes.

But Lancashire-born Tracy stressed: ‘I have personally never experienced any negativity about the fact I am a woman.’

She became chief executive officer for HSBC’s operations in the Isle of Man and the Channel Island last February.

Before that, Tracy was CEO of First Direct, the pioneering UK-based 24-hour telephone retail bank.

Tracy said she was proud to say HSBC was committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace.

In an exclusive interview with Business News, Tracy:

Confirmed banking giant HSBC is committed to the Isle of Man and its 187 staff here.

Claimed customers have nothing to fear from new regulations which will see the bank becoming not part of the UK ring-fence.

Talked about how the bank, like others globally, has to comply with regulations and security by checking customers’ details and following due diligence to deter the ‘bad actors’ who may have illegal activities in mind.

Talking about women in business, she said: ‘I do think, there’s to some degree, an element that if you’re self confident and you know what you’re about, you know what you are doing, and you give off that sense, there is less inclination maybe to receive negative treatment.

‘Now that’s not to say I deny that it happens. I know plenty of other women who have experienced problems but I personally haven’t.’

She said ‘sadly’ she knew of other women who had encountered problems including sexism. ‘And as much as anything maybe a lack of opportunity, in some cases, where it was very deserved. So I have seen it.

‘From my perspective I just believe generally in meritocracy and the best person for the job should be the person who gets the job.

‘Our society is broadly 50/50 and it just makes no common sense that we wouldn’t really optimise the opportunity to leverage all the talent that exists in business.

‘And it stands to reason that if you have a 50/50 population probably you are going to have a 50/50 talent split as well. HSBC I’m really proud to say is very committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace.

‘I’m very proud in the Europe international region that I’m part of, to have been the first female CEO to have been appointed in that group.

‘HSBC has a good record in recent years of recognising capable female leaders and we are very committed to continuing that.

‘But it’s not just about gender. Diversity and inclusion are really about ensuring you have a diversity of thought and that you are bringing to the table in all of your roles, particularly in leadership, people who represent the communities in which we operate.

‘And that spans ethnicity, sexual orientation, all of those sorts of things.

‘So we are committed to more diversity [in HSBC] generally.’

Tracy said she mentors a lot of people generally within the business, ‘butI do specifically mentor a couple of women. And I think that’s really important. I think you have to give something back.

‘I’m very fortunate in always being treated in a meritocaratic way but I think it is important to reach back down into the organisation to ensure that that is sustained and that same positive experience that I have had is available to others that are up and coming.’

Tracy said the traditional image of bankers being middle-aged men in waistcoats is ‘changing’ .

‘If you look at the FTSE 100 or the FTSE 250 there’s been massive progress in the last few years in terms of the make up of boards with female representation.

‘[But] in the executive levels I think there’s still a way to go.

‘I think HSBC has committed to various charters and particularly the women in finance one which is really important.

‘I think it is important that big organisations nail their colours to the mast.’

Asked if she can be a role model for other women she said: ‘I hope so’.

She said it was quite interesting that when she was appointed CEO of First Direct based in Leeds, a newspaper ran a story headlined: ‘‘Mother appointed CEO of First Direct.’’

‘It did take me a little bit by surprise and then I reflected for a moment and thought well: ‘‘It’s just reflecting the fact that it was still a novelty.’’

‘And as sad as that might be that maybe gives me a platform upon which to talk about the issue.

Tracy is married to Bill and has two children, a son who will soon be 20 and a 24-year-old daughter.

Based at HSBC’s flagship headquarters on The Esplanade in Jersey, Tracy oversees the local retail and commercial bank, HSBC Bank International as well as the Private Banking and Trust businesses of the HSBC Group in the Isle of Man and Channel Islands.

She says she tries to get across to the island every few weeks for meetings with people ‘at the coal face.’

Ring-fencing

Banks with branches or subsidiaries in the Isle of Man are continuing to make arrangements to comply with UK ring-fencing reforms.

It’s a major plank of reforms to protect and strengthen the UK financial system following the global financial crisis which began in 2007.

However, banks in the Isle of Man will be outside the UK ring-fence.

Tracy Garrad told Business News HSBC customers willhave ‘no need to worry.’

She said this is a ‘really interesting time’ for the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

‘From our perspective the islands have at various points been incorporated within broader UK structures to some degree.

‘Now we do need to fully separate because the Crown Dependencies have a fairly unique position . . . outside the ring fence scope.

‘So for us as a business it gives us the opportunity to re-imagine and invest in the business that we have here.

‘We have an important part to play in HSBC [across the islands of the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark]

‘We will structurally be part of the non-ringfence bank that spans the Europe region. It’s everything that is in the European bank that’s outside of the UK.

‘We sit outside of that and we are a big player when you look at the Europe region.

‘Excluding the UK the other two biggest markets are clearly France and Germany, but then we are the next biggest after that with the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.’

Business News asked her if customers in the Isle of Man need to be worried about not being part of the UK ringfence.

She replied: ‘No not at all.

‘For us it does nothing to change our strategy or our commitment to the islands including the Isle of Man.

‘But what it does do is give us the opportunity to focus in on what our customers in these islands want and need and perhaps to tailor some of those propositions a little bit more than what was historically the case where we were a small part of the bigger UK business often.

‘It gives us an opportunity to just really consider in a bit more detail what these customers might want and make some tweaks if we think there are opportunities there.’

Business News raised the question that public confidence in banks has taken a jolt in recent years particularly after the crisis 10 years ago.

She was asked: ‘What can you say to let customers know their money is safe?’

She replied: ‘The industry has moved on massively.

‘If you look at a lot of the regulations and in fact what ring fencing is there to do.

‘Ringfencing is there to separate the retail banking deposits from what would broadly be considered to be risky areas. But there has been a whole lot of other regulations around levels of capital that have to be held, around senior manager individual accountability for decision making and around prudent risk management.

‘There has been so much change and I think culturally every bank, and I know HSBC particularly, has put an awful lot of effort into that culture change.

‘From the point of view of being in the non-ringfence bank we are a significant player in this. HSBC, even 10 years ago, wasn’t one of the banks that needed public support.

‘We didn’t take any kind of public money, we did not need a bail-in and we are very proud of that because we think it is testament to what we have always believed as an organisation which is good, prudential and risk-management. I think those principles have stood the test of time and that does not change now.’

She said in various jurisdictions there are various depositor compensation schemes with varying thresholds.

‘We have an accountability to five regulators in HSBC in the islands.

‘The important thing in a financial stress situation, which again I reiterate, HSBC is well buffered against, then it’s really important that those regulators have joined-up approaches in terms of the recovery and resolution plans that would take effect.’

committed

Tracy said HSBC is totally committed to the island - an ‘important part of our business.’

‘We are very committed to the island.’

Some 187 staff work for HSBC in the island.

‘There are some really critical functions that we run from the island for sure and they do sterling work.’

Tracy said HSBC offers a ‘great career path’ and there were some vacancies.

‘We really value the activity that takes place here in the Isle of Man and it plays a really important part in our overall business model.

‘There’s a lot of the middle office and the back office activity here that has some veryskilled people.’

Tracy was speaking from HSBC House in Ridgeway Street, in the heart of Douglas as she gave her first major interview to Business Newssince taking on the top job.

She was asked about the procedures for taking on new customers.

hurdles

She said: Every bank these days is having to meet verystringent standards in terms of ‘‘Know your customer’’ and due diligence about who customers are and where their money has come from.

‘We are not alone in that, every financial institution globally is having to do that and sometimes [it] does present hurdles, barriers for customers to get over when they are either opening a brand new account or when they are moving their account.’

She added that in general there has to be a ‘common sense check’ around why anyone would open an account in the island, or in fact any jurisdiction, when they are not resident there.

Tracy said checks were not going to go away – ‘every bank is doing it. And it’s because there are international standards every bank has to comply with.

bad actors

‘And it’s for very good reasons. We all want to ensure the safety and security of the financial system, we don’t want to have bad actors in there that are using our networks of branches and money transfer systems, for illegitimate reasons.

‘It’s a sad fact unfortunately that globally the international finance system has been the subjectof such bad actors in the past. We all have to work hard to mitigate that because there are very real impacts, whether it’s human trafficking or drugs, whatever it might be, and we all want to do our best to prevent that.’

Tracy added: ‘I hear a lot of complaints in the industry about the levels of compliance but when you come back to the basics of it every bit of compliance and regulation that I see has really good intent.

‘There is usually good reason behind a new compliance requirement.

‘I think the secret is to make sure that we remember there is a customer at the heart of this banking relationship and to be thoughtful in how those compliance standards can be met.

‘In the past as an industry I don’t know that we have always remembered that as much as we might.

‘But I think that is changing because of consumer expectations.’

Business News asked if she has time for any leisure pursuits as well as being a bank boss and wife and mother.

She revealed that she had recently started playing golf, an activity often seen in the past as a truly male bastion.

She plays in the Channel Islands where she lives.

But she admitted she would one day look forward to stepping out on one of the island’s well-known courses for herself.