EU calls for women to make up one-third of bank directors

Britain's banks could be radically overhauled under new proposals from Brussels demanding that a third of the directors on the boards of banks should be female.

A draft directive circulating in the City shows that Michel Barnier, Europe's internal markets commissioner, wants to impose mandatory quotas to dictate the number of women of sitting on bank boards. He believes the change would help prevent the kind of "group think" often blamed for exacerbating the crisis that struck the industry in 2008.

His plan contrasts sharply with the UK government's less radical decision, after an inquiry by the former trade minister Lord Davies, to set targets to encourage greater female representation in the boardroom.

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