Citigroup said it would measure, publish and take steps to close the gaps between what it pays men and women in three countries and for US minorities.
The move follows a shareholder proposal filed by Boston-based Arjuna Capital and is the first of its kind by a big US bank. As well as the US, Citigroup also studied pay in the U.K. - where such reporting is now mandatory - and Germany.
Citigroup will increase the pay of women and US minorities as well as others where raises are warranted to close the gap, the bank said in a statement. It also promised to do similar analyses in other countries where any of its more than 200,000 employees work.
The focus on pay "supports our efforts to attract and retain the best talent and reward performance," Citigroup said. About half of the bank's employees are women but only a quarter of senior executives are female. Eleven percent of its U.S. employees are African American, while only 1.6 percent of senior executives are.
Citigroup said it analyzed total compensation of its employees in the U.S., the U.K. and Germany, looking at factors such as job level, function and geography. It found that women on average earned 99 percent of men's pay and that U.S. minorities earned 99 percent of non-minorities' pay.