Citigroup has hired Luisa Leyenaar-Huntingford from Goldman Sachs. This new hire is to co-head its global infrastructure franchise. Because, it seeks to win more business from cash-rich investment firms focusing on infrastructure deals. Leyenaar-Huntingford will be based in London. Responsibility will be shared with Todd Guenther in New York.

The pair will work closely with industry teams covering healthcare, industrials, natural resources and clean energy transition (NRCET), technology and communications. Leyenaar-Huntingford helped in the establishment of the Goldman’s infrastructure franchise in her time at the Wall Street bank. They will team up with Citi’s Iberia co-head of banking, capital markets and advisory (BCMA) Jorge Ramos will continue to be a senior member of the global infrastructure franchise.

The infrastructure sector is poised for further growth, according to the memo. The memo was released by Citi’s global co-heads of the alternative assets group Anthony Diamandakis and John Eydenberg, and its EMEA head of BCMA Nacho Gutierrez-Orrantia. There was significant private investment demand across the globe to deal with environmental, energy, transportation, waste, communication, digital and other social needs.

Major banks in Britain made a slight dent in their gender pay gaps. Several insurers went backwards. Companies in Britain with more than 250 employees have been required to publish the difference between the pay and bonuses of their male and female employees. They got a reprieve due to the pandemic, last year. The financial services sector has shown one of the largest genders pay gaps in Britain. The lack of women in senior jobs is the main reason.

Pay gap data from 21 major financial institutions showed a narrowing in their average mean gender pay gap. This is just 0.4 percentage points. Banks alone had a pay gap which narrowed by one percentage point. Ann Francke, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute said that the UK’s financial services industry has often been singled out. It really does have to get its house in order. Goldman Sachs had the widest gender pay gap in the year to April 2020. Goldman posted a gender pay gap of 51.8%. The bank told the staffs that narrowing the gap further was a critical priority. A spokesperson for banking lobby group UK Finance said, that there is clearly more still to be done.

FTSE 100 insurers Prudential, Legal & General and M&G reported a widening in their pay gaps. Prudential’s UK gender pay gap widened to 45.2%. M&G also reported a widening in its pay gap in the most recent year to 30.5%. The M&G spokesperson said that they are determined to narrow their gender pay gap and will do this by achieving better representation of women in all roles at all levels of our organization. Legal & General’s mean gender pay gap widened to 30.8%.

The insurer said that the legal & general is tackling the underlying causes of its pay gap. This is by creating a more diverse workforce and a more inclusive culture through sustained, long-term action. Admiral had a gender pay gap last year of 12.8%. The 21 firms surveyed were Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest, Standard Chartered, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs International, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, PGMS (a Phoenix unit), abrdn, Schroder Investment Management, St James’s Place, Legal & General, Prudential, Admiral Group, Aviva and M&G.

Keeping the inflation elevated longer, the supply constraints thwarting global economic growth could still get worse. The world’s top central bankers warned that this is even if the current spike in prices is still likely to remain temporary. During the pandemic, the disruptions to the global economy have upset supply chains across continents.

These disruptions have left the world short of a plethora of goods and services from car parts and microchips to container vessels that transport goods. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told a conference that it is frustrating to see the bottlenecks and supply chain problems not getting better. That is in fact at the margin apparently getting a little bit worse. Powell told the European Central Bank‘s Forum that they are continuing into next year probably and holding inflation up longer than they had thought.

ECB chief Christine Lagarde voiced similar concerns by arguing that the end of these bottlenecks, once thought by economists to be just weeks away, is uncertain. Lagarde said that the supply bottlenecks and the disruption of supply chains, which they have been experiencing for a few months seem to be continuing and, in some sectors, accelerating. She thinks that about shipping, cargo handling etc.,

Global inflation has spiked in recent months. Lagarde said that the ECB would be very attentive to these second-round effects. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, had planned another speaker at the forum. He said that he would keep a very close watch on inflation expectations. Central banks are the main authority for controlling prices. They have no influence over short-term supply disruptions. And so, they are likely to be bystanders. They will wait for economic anomalies. Bailey said that monetary policy cannot solve supply side shocks. It cannot produce computer chips, wind, truck drivers etc., Policymakers called for heightened attention to inflation. They all maintained their view that the spike in inflation would be temporary.

Concerns about sticky inflation have fuelled a debate. This is for unwinding the crisis-era stimulus measures. The Fed, the BoE and the Bank of Canada have openly discussed policy tightening. In countries as South Korea, Norway and Hungary, they have already raised interest rates. The ECB and the Bank of Japan are the last movers. The ECB refuses to discuss tapering. This sort of patience was only reinforced by Lagarde and Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda.