Bank of England ditches gendered language

The old lady of Threadneedle Street might be no longer after the Bank of England promised to banish gendered language from its rulebooks.

The Bank, nicknamed The Old Lady for most of its 300-year history, will stop using masculine words such as "chairman" and "grandfathering" – a clause put in place between two sets of rules – in a bid to make sure its documents and letters are viewed as gender neutral.

Making the announcement in a 337-page update on the regulation of bank and insurance bosses, the plans also include changing how individuals are addressed as "his" or "her" in policy documents.

The proposals were made by the Bank's Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), which supervises banks and insurers and said the move reflected its "commitment to encourage equality and diversity at regulated firms".

It will pay a one-off cost to change the wording of the so-called senior managers regime, created last March to monitor senior bank staff in response to the financial crisis, the idea being to eventually make all documents gender neutral.

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