Women in Italian banking system: is there still gender bias in lending?

In Italy, the traditional and outdated vision of women as wives and mothers remains, and it is often difficult to accept the role of women as businesswomen, especially in the financial sector.

The result is a “taste-based discrimination”, determined by cognitive prejudices of banks towards women. 

First of all, the general legislative framework in Europe relating to the presence of women in the corporate environment; then, the literature on discrimination against women in the banking sector was examined, falling within the field of behavioural finance.

Finally, an analysis was developed with Italian data extracted from Refinitiv to investigate the relationship between gender governance and credit pricing. 

This analysis found that women paid higher interest rates than men when they succeed in borrowing.

The empirical findings are truly interesting since they have important managerial implications, emphasizing the importance of diversity management and the heterogeneous composition of the CEO within a company.

This book also offers an overview of the interventions being undertaken by the Italian Government to face the Covid-19 crisis. Indeed, before the pandemic, female businesses paid the highest bill.

Gender equality: it is really so far? Maybe, in the financial markets at least.

Luana Serino
received a Ph.D. in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli. She graduated from the same University with a bachelor’s in Economics, Finance and Markets. She is Subject Expert in Corporate Finance and Credit Risk at the Department of Economics at the University of Campania L. Vanvitelli. She is the author of numerous national and international works about the bank-industry relationship, the financial constraints for women-led businesses, the credit risk assessment. She is finance lecturer at Stoà Master Post Degree in Management.