HSBC chief bemoans lack of women among banking elite

Stuart Gulliver, group chief executive officer of HSBC, says there is a lack of women in top banking positions. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Stuart Gulliver, the boss of HSBC, has spoken out against the lack of women at the top of what he called the "pale, male, stale" banking industry.

In a speech in Hong Kong, Gulliver said: "To discriminate against women is to discriminate against talent. It's unfair. It's wrong. And it's a really poor business decision." He explained: "This is not about being cuddly, it's about competitive advantage."

Almost half of the bank's 261,000 workforce is made up of women but at senior management level the proportion falls below a quarter.

However, this is a higher proportion than rivals and Gulliver said the bank had set a target for 25% of senior management to be women compared with 22% now.

The bank has four women – all non-executives – on its board of seventeen. "That shouldn't be taken as a signal that the job is done – because having four women on a board of seventeen people doesn't necessarily tell you very much about the experiences of the 125,000 women in the rest of the organisation," Gulliver said.

He said the bank had only in the last 10 to 20 years started to promote women in its workforce, assuming in the past that they would not want to work overseas or would fail to be taken seriously in some of the markets in which the bank operates.

Describing himself as a grammar school boy who went to university (Oxford) on a scholarship, he said that diversity was not just aboutgender but also ethnicity, religious belief, disability and sexual orientation.

He said Antonio Simoes, chief executive of the UK banking arm, had been ranked number one on the "OUTstanding in Business" power list of gay and lesbian business leaders in Britain.

"The real opportunity on diversity is to be more thoughtful," said Gulliver.

The 54-year-old, who began his career at HSBC as a foreign exchange trader, said that he was trying to change the culture of the bank.

When he joined it was a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week commitment – "a model that automatically made it tough for women who wanted to have children. Incidentally I don't think it was always good for men either."

He admitted he found discussions about culture challenging. "We are still too pale and male for our own good. And by the way I do appreciate the irony of my telling this to you," he told his audience in Hong Kong.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, is promoting a recommendation by Lord Davies, the former boss of Standard Chartered, that a quarter of boardroom roles be held by women by 2015. Data this week showed that women now hold more boardroom positions than ever before – 19% of FTSE 100 roles – but they are largely non-executive directors.

How TV Apprentice Yasmina Siadatan became start-ups' friend

Four years on from winning BBC1's The Apprentice, Yasmina Siadatan is creative director of the Start-Up Loans Company chaired by TV dragon James Caan. Photograph: Frantzesco Kangaris

The rollcall of government experts sometimes reads like the pages of the Radio Times. Shopping guru Mary Portas is campaigning to save the high street, finance entrepreneur James Caan, below, a former regular on Dragons' Den, is the government's social mobility tsar, while property makeover queen Kirstie Allsopp doled out advice on housing policy to the Tories in opposition. When the previous Labour government wanted a sprinkling of small-screen glamour, they called on Jamie Oliver, Alan Sugar, Carol Vorderman and Loyd Grossman.

Yasmina Siadatan, winner of the fifth series of BBC1's The Apprentice, is one of the latest TV faces to be helping out Whitehall. She is the creative director, and public face, of the Start-Up Loans Company, a government-backed agency that will lend £150m to budding entrepreneurs over the next few years.

Siadatan, who set up a well-reviewed restaurant in Caversham with her brother before winning The Apprentice in 2009, would argue she has the credentials to be much more than just "that woman off the telly". "Tim Sawyer [Start-Up Loans chief executive] appointed me because I am asmall business owner myself … I have been through that process and started up a business from scratch."

As if she has just 20 seconds in the boardroom to convince "Siralan", she makes a rapid-fire pitch: "A: I think that [small business] exposure gives me good credentials to communicate with people that need a start-up loan. And B, after I won The Apprentice I got thrust into the media world. I learned first hand how the media world works."

After winning The Apprentice, Siadatan went on to work for Sir Alan Sugar's Amscreen business and later for another small-screen business personality – TV dragon James Caan at his private equity firm Hamilton Bradshaw. At Start-Up Loans – also chaired by Caan – she says she earns much less than the £100,000 a year she got while working as Sugar's "apprentice".

Since its launch in 2012, the Start-Up Loans Company has lent more than £44m to about 9,600 small businesses that might have been deemed too risky by high-street banks. Initially targeted at the under-25s, the scheme has been extended to all age groups, with the average loan worth £5,700.

The scheme is not without its critics. Borrowers are £500,000 in arrears with their repayments, a figure that is expected to rise dramatically as some start-ups go to the wall. The government expects that 40% of the loans will never be repaid, raising doubts over whether taxpayers get value for money from the £150m scheme.

"Two out of every three start-ups in this country fail," says Siadatan. "It is the nature of the beast. Our 40% default rate is obviously lower than two out of three."

Even those who default on their loans are still a good investment, she argues, because they will gain valuable experience that will make them more employable. "They have got more skills than they had before, so there is a positive economic benefit even if people default on the loan."

Start-Up Loans also claims to reach a more diverse range of would-be business owners. More than a third of loan recipients are women, compared with 19% of women registered as company founders at Companies House. Nearly 40% are from ethnic minority groups, while a third of recipients were unemployed before they got a loan.

"We don't discriminate because of background," says Siadatan, a London School of Economics graduate. "We will lend money whether you don't have any GCSEs or whether you have a PhD from Cambridge. We really don't mind. You could come to us, prove the business case, prove that you have got the personality to drive this business forward and we will lend you the money."

Start-Up Loans may trumpet its inclusive credentials, but it was tainted by the nepotism scandal that engulfed Caan this year. The businessman was accused of hypocrisy when it emerged he had given his daughter three jobs at organisations he was associated with – including a role as an adviser to the Start-Up Loans company – despite advising other parents not to give their children a helping hand in the workplace.

Hanah Caan stood down from Start-Up Loans in September, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Siadatan does not want to judge her chairman: "Ninety-nine point nine nine per cent of the time he gets it right. He made a mistake and he apologised for it."

Start-Up Loans continues to expand, doling out funds to entrepreneurs as varied as those appearing on Dragons' Den, from a one-woman camper van hire business to an 18-year-old developing a smartphone app.

Yet while the government dreams of "the march of the makers", an upsurge in technology and manufacturing wizardry, it seems that most small business owners are more interested in cutting hair and serving cappuccinos than developing the next big tech start-up or making machine tools.

The most popular type of business is health and beauty, followed by food and drink, while manufacturing accounts for just 1.4% of businesses helped.

The popularity of these "bread and butter businesses" is hardly surprising, counters Siadatan. "The press-worthy, tech-savvy east London start-ups made great headlines but not everyone has got the skills necessary to create the next Google. Start-Up Loans is definitely not here to create the next Google or the next Amazon. If it happens along the way, great, but we are very much focused on helping everyday businesspeople turn their entrepreneurial skills into a successful business."

Britain has become more entrepreneurial in the last decade, she thinks, as the recession has dampened the labour market, while running a business has "become a lot more sexy" thanks to shows such as The Apprentice and Dragons' Den.

But doesn't The Apprentice, with its backstabbing contestants and their Napoleonic egos, give people the wrong idea about how to make it in the business world?

"It is a TV show and [people] shouldn't take it too seriously," she says. "In the same way, if you wanted to learn how to be a pop star, you wouldn't watch The X Factor and take notes.

"The very fact that the core of the show is about business is a positive thing because it starts a conversation."

The teenagers who screamed at her in the streets after she won The Apprentice would never have watched a dry factual programme on how to be an entrepreneur, she says. Ultimately, "people should not take everything on the TV as gospel".

Upbeat US jobs data raises prospect of December tapering

A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. US job numbers for October beat market expectations. sto Photograph: Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Speculation that the Federal Reserve will begin winding down America's economic stimulus next month grew on Friday after the latest figures for jobs growth smashed expectations on Wall Street.

News that the world's biggest economy shrugged off the impact of the three-week government shutdown to create 204,000 new jobs stunned dealers and prompted anticipation that the US central bank will start tapering away its $85bn (£53bn) a month bond buying programme at its December meeting.

Financial markets had been braced for an increase of 120,000 in October non-farm payrolls amid concerns that the budget stand-off in Washington would have a knock-on impact across the wider economy.

But they revised forecasts that the Fed will wait until the spring before beginning the tapering process after the Bureau of Labour Statistics announced that an across-the-board increase in private sector jobs had swamped the effects of temporary layoffs of federal employees.

The BLS also revised up its estimates of employment growth in the previous two months by a total of 60,000, with August payrolls increased from 193,000 to 238,000 and September's from 148,000 to 163,000.

The Fed was widely expected to start winding down its quantitative easing programme in September but shelved the plans after growth prosepcts were damaged by an increase in long-term interest rates prompted by talk of a taper.

But the BLS data for the labour market coupled with data showing that the US economy expanded at an annual rate of 2.8% in the third quarter of 2013 means that a small monthly cut in the amount of bonds being bought will be on the central bank's agenda when it meets next month.

Shares on Wall Street rose in early trading, with some analysts saying that the Fed was still likely to adopt a wait-and-see approach given the probability that economic data during the period of the shutdown will be heavily revised. This feeling was strengthened by news that the regular snapshot of consumer confidence from Michigan University showed sentiment at its lowest level since late 2011.

Paul Ashworth, US analyst for Capital Economics, said: "The near three-week Federal government shutdown had little, if any, impact on payrolls. The strength in job creation was widespread. Manufacturing increased by a healthy 19,000, construction increased by 11,000 and retail increased by 44,000. Federal employment fell by a modest 12,000, because those workers affected by the shutdown received their back pay when they returned, which means they were counted as employed in the establishment survey.

"Overall, in our opinion, the data now justify the Fed reducing the pace of its asset purchases in December."

But Chris Williamson, of Markit, said the US labour market was less healthy than the big jump in payrolls suggested, pointing out that the rise in unemployment from 7.2% to 7.3% of the workforce showed "how the sluggish current pace of economic growth is failing to create enough new jobs to bring down the jobless total."

He added: "The employment data therefore adds to the sense that Fed policymakers will be in no rush to make any reduction to the current $85bn per month asset purchase programme, but that the risks are towards policy being reined in in due course. Most likely, however, the Fed will need to wait some time, possibly until after the health of the economy in the first quarter is ascertained, before making any firm decisions on any tapering. That could be as late as March."

The Fed has been using a twin-tracked approach to boosting the US economy since it went into a deep recession in 2008. Official interest rates have been slashed to close to zero while quantitative easing has flooded the banking system with new electronic cash.

But the recovery in the US economy and concerns that QE is leading to distortions in financial markets around the globe has resulted in some members of the Fed's policy making committee pressing for the programme to be wound down gradually. Wall Street believes that initially the bond-buying will only be reduced by $5-10bn a month, while the central bank has sought to reassure markets by stating that it currently has no plans to raise the cost of borrowing until unemployment comes down to 6.5%.

Sam Burgess returns from suspension as England face Fiji in final game

Sam Burgess, seen training with his England colleagues, returns from suspension to face Fiji. Photograph: Paul Thomas/Getty Images

Sam Burgess, all 18 stone and 6ft 5in of him, considers his response with a wry smile when asked simply if he is a thug. Sitting at England's training camp in Loughborough and preparing to make his comeback from suspension after a wild tackle on Australia's Sam Thaiday, the question, while accompanied with a facetious facade, follows serious criticism of Burgess's character.

"I don't need to justify myself to the Australian press," he says. "There are always going to be things written and people will have an opinion but I don't need to justify what I think of myself to them – I'll just get on with things."

Burgess is a man who certainly relishes the physical battle. Fitting, then, that he should mark his return to action on Saturday against a Fiji side renowned for their big heart and bigger hits. It is another of the Burgess clan, George, who has caught the eye for England so far during this World Cup and both brothers will play on Saturday in Hull with Tom given a week off by the coach, Steve McNamara.

Yet Sam Burgess, while being regarded as the undisputed star of the family in Sydney where all four brothers play for Russell Crowe's Rabbitohs, has been lambasted in sections of Australia's press following the challenge on Thaiday.

Crowe, the South Sydney co-owner, recently described Burgess as "a guy who can be as vicious as he needs to be, he can do anything he needs to do during the course of that 80 minutes to bring the result towards his team … but the moment that final whistle blows, he is a completely different man".

The Sydney-based Daily Telegraph described the 24-year-old as a thug, guilty of "appalling and inexcusable behaviour on rugby league fields in 2013". Burgess, though, has not risen to the bait.

"I've heard it all before. I think they wrote that me and James Graham were fighting, so I guess you must take what's written with a pinch of salt," says Burgess. "It's funny what they come up with.

"I'm not bothered what they write. They write good things, they write bad things, but you've got to take the rough with the smooth. Like I said, it doesn't really affect me and it's part of the game over there.

"Rugby league is big over there and is written about a lot with a lot of newspaper coverage, so it's not a big deal. The Telegraph have got their own interpretation and I'm not going to sit here and defend myself. I don't think I need to do that just yet.

"I play the game 100% and occasionally things aren't going to go as I planned. I've got no regrets and I'm certainly not going to sit here and explain myself to the Australian press. The one-game ban was fair enough because it was an ugly tackle and probably warranted."

The World Cup has been something of a homecoming for the three Burgess brothers in McNamara's squad. Returning to their native west Yorkshire last weekend for England's convincing 42-0 victory over Ireland, Sam Burgess sat the game out as George and Tom were watched by a large number of their old friends in Huddersfield.

On his new-found fame in Australia, Burgess says: "I don't really take a great deal of notice of it really. I've got my family around and a lot of good friends away from rugby that are just very normal really.

"I don't really read the papers or flick on the television, so I guess if you're blinded by it then you don't really notice it. We just try and stay as normal as we can and enjoy our time there

"It's been so refreshing to be back in England and around English people again. I've had a hell of a lot of support from English people since I've been back here."

For England it has so far been a World Cup dogged with controversies. For Burgess, though, the tournament is only just beginning.

He says: "We took a lot from the Australia game, even though we lost there were some positives – hopefully we can put everything together this weekend.

Tom Cruise sues Bauer for $50m

Tom Cruise has filed a defamation lawsuit against Bauer over claims by two Bauer tabloids in 2012 that he had "abandoned" his daughter. Photograph: Donald Traill/AP

Tom Cruise has dismissed claims in two magazines that he "abandoned" his daughter Suri following his divorce from her mother, Katie Holmes.

In a filing to a US court, the actor says the claims in two magazines – Life & Style and In Touch – were "patently false".

He is suing the magazines' publisher, Bauer Publishing, for defamation, and seeking compensation of $50m (£31m). "I have in no way cut Suri out of my life," he said in his legal statement in Los Angeles.

The magazine articles were published in September 2012, three months after the six-year marriage of Cruise and Holmes ended in divorce.

They alleged that Cruise's overseas film shoots had prevented him from being a constant presence in Suri's life. In Touch's cover line said: "44 days without Tom. Abandoned by daddy. Suri is left heartbroken as Tom suddenly shuts her out and even misses her first day of school."

In his filing, Cruise conceded that his work involved "extended periods of time in various parts of the world", but stated that he and his daughter remained "extremely close" and had a "wonderful relationship."

He added that Suri "has never indicated, in words or substance, that she has ever felt abandoned by me".

Bauer's lawyers have argued that Cruise's motion should be rejected, saying they have statements from confidential sources who support the allegations.

When Cruise announced last October that he was suing Bauer, his lawyer, Bert Fields, described the claim that the actor had deserted his daughter as a “vicious lie”.

Tiger Woods one behind lead group after stunning 63 at Turkish Open

Tiger Woods in action during the second round of the Turkish Airlines Open at The Montgomerie Maxx Royal Course. Photograph: Warren Little/Getty Images

Tiger Woods produced a flawless second-round 63 at the Turkish Airlines Open to lie just one off the lead at the halfway stage in Antalya.

Unrecognisable from the player who struggled from the tee on Thursday, the world No1 fired nine birdies to reach 11 under for the week at the Montgomerie Maxx Royal to sit hot on the heels of a leading group that features Race to Dubai contenders Henrik Stenson and Ian Poulter.

"I played a lot better and made some putts," said the American, who climbed from 52nd to fifth on the leaderboard on day two. I missed some too, so it was a round that could have been really special but I'm right there.

"We're going to have to continue going low here given the way the course is set up. The greens are slow, the greens are soft and I expect guys to make a lot of birdies - it's so bunched up there. I've just got to go get it."

The 37-year-old had looked rusty on day one of his first competitive start for a month, hitting only two fairways over the 10 holes he played to be six off the lead after lightning and heavy rain had delayed Thursday's action by three hours.

Matters looked to be improving for the 14-time major champion when he resumed his first round, a chip to inside five feet providing a gain at the 11th and another birdie coming two holes later. But a dropped shot at the 18th, where he took three shots to get down from just off the edge of the green, saw Woods sign for a two-under-par 70 to remain six adrift on completion of the first round.

It was a different story when the second round began. In glorious conditions Woods struck an iron close at the par-three second, holed from 12 feet at the third, then reached the green in two at the long fourth and two-putted to complete a hat-trick of birdies.

A 15-foot putt at the sixth followed, before sticking his approach to five feet at the ninth to complete a brilliant outward 30. Woods converted from 18 feet at the 10th, but missed three birdie chances from inside 10 feet over the next four holes.

His response was to hit it even closer – a wonderful approach to three feet at the 15th remarkably bettered two holes later as the ball finished within inches of the cup, with a birdie at the last completing his scoring.

Stenson had birdied four of the last eight holes of his first round upon resuming on Friday morning to surge into a share of the lead, and a second-round 68 was enough to keep the Swede there alongside Poulter, France's Victor Dubuisson and the South African Justin Walters

Andy Murray critical of Viktor Troicki and Marin Cilic after drug bans

Andy Murray, who is currently recovering from injury, says there has to be zero tolerance over drugs in tennis. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian

Andy Murray has called Viktor Troicki and Marin Cilic "unprofessional" for falling foul of the game's drugs laws, although the players have received qualified support from Roger Federer and unequivocal backing from Novak Djokovic.

Troicki this week had an 18-month ban for failing to take a test in Monte Carlo in April reduced to a year while Cilic resumed playing in Paris last week after having his nine-month sentence for testing positive for a prohibited substance in Munich in April halved on appeal.

Both players insist they are innocent but Murray says in an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live to be broadcast on Tuesday: "Whether either player was intentionally cheating or not, we don't know that, and I don't think either of them are like that – but both of them, I think, were unprofessional."

Murray's take on the issue is in stark contrast to that of Djokovic, who defended the players passionately during the ATP World Tour Finals this week. On Thursday Federer defended the system but says players are not tested often enough.

"There needs to be more testing done," Federer said. "Overall I trust the system. I think they're all very professional. I just think it's very important that they treat us like normal human beings, not criminals. It's fine to treat a guy bad if the guy tested positive, the guy needs to feel the pain, but not if you haven't done anything yet."

Murray, who flies to Miami on Monday for his winter training block, is still recuperating from the back operation in September that brought his season to an early close. He has told his team he is keen to take up an invitation to return to competition in an exhibition in Barbados later this month.

However, the Scot was an idle bystander as Rafael Nadal eliminated Tomas Berdych from the ATP World Tour finals at the O2 Arena in Greenwich on Friday night, the Spaniard winning a curiously uneven match 6-4, 1-6, 6-3, thereby ensuring a semi-final place for himself and Stanislas Wawrinka, who earlier put out David Ferrer. The Swiss won 6-7, 6-4, 6-1 in a similarly edgy contest.

But the story of the day was Murray's hardline view on drugs testing. Troicki maintains he was not advised of the consequences when he told a drugs tester that he was too ill to give a sample. He gave a sample the following day and the test was negative. Cilic's ban came after he tested positive for a banned stimulant he said he had inadvertently taken in glucose tablets he asked his mother to buy for him from a pharmacy near his Monte Carlo apartment.

"We don't know exactly what was said in the room between the doping control officer and Viktor," Murray said of Troicki, "but the reality is that there are rules there and you need to stick to what the rules are. They are going to change them now: there's going to have to be someone from the ATP in the room with the player, which I think is a step in the right direction because the whole case was a sort of 'he said, she said', and that doesn't work.

"When we're asked to go and give a drugs test, we must do that. That's what the rules are. There has to be zero tolerance. A lot of players a few years ago were almost naive in thinking that stuff just doesn't go on intennis, or in sport. But you've seen over the last few years that it's become such a huge story across everything with athletes and cycling.

"Obviously tennis has had a few problems as well, so to get the trust back from the public and from everyone we need to show that we are doing the right things, and when people break the rules that they are punished and that they don't get off, and I guess it's a step in the right direction.

"You need to know the rules. I personally myself would never go and buy something over the counter in a pharmacy – it's just unprofessional. You need to check any supplement that you are taking: whether it's a protein shake or fish oils, or anything like that, you get it checked. We are professional athletes now – there's now no excuses."