Christine Lagarde on the State of the Financial Sector

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: You know, you’ve often complained about posturing and too much testosterone around a negotiating table.

CHRISTINE LAGARDE: Well, I’m afraid this has not improved much. We are just actually going to release a study on the financial sector where it’s very clear that there are not enough women in finance. Only 2% of bank CEOs are women and if you look at the range of people in the banking and the financial sectors who are taking decisions, 20% at the most are women. So we seriously have a shortage.

AMANPOUR: And you used to tell me and used to say publicly this is not just a moral issue and just a humanity project, but it’s actually a dollars and cents issue.

LAGARDE: Absolutely. It’s more than that actually. It’s a dollar issue because generally, firms that have women on their board or on the executive teams are more profitable. You look at the bottom line, it’s very clear and there have been many studies on that front. But most of the point in finance, in banks that have more women or in supervisory authorities that have more women, it is more stable. It is safer. It is more secure.

There are less risks taken, and, you know, we have had a lot of risks.

AMANPOUR: Well, in fact, we just – that takes me back into the risky situation right now. You might have heard Kellyanne Conway. She just said that the United States is getting screwed by many other countries in unfair trade and unfair surpluses and all the rest of it. And actually, Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary told you, yourself, that you need to take a firm hand dealing with some of these global players regarding their trade surpluses. Are you going to take a firm hand and do buy into that?

LAGARDE: I think it’s not because you have a leak in your bathtub that you are going to destroy the destroy the bathroom. I know, it’s a silly analogy, but that’s really where we are. We have international trade. We have been really fueling innovation, improved productivity, reduced cost of living because of international trade. Because of international trade, an American family is able to spend probably about a third more than it would had it not been for trade and that is particularly true for the low income families.

AMANPOUR: Even the left behind families.

LAGARDE: Yes, absolutely because they are the ones who buy more food, they are the ones who buy more clothes. They are the ones who are going to take advantage of the good deals that you have on some of those goods that are imported. So it has been in the main, extremely beneficial for the consumers and for the economies that have been opened. More innovation, more productivity that has been really a good deal, but it is true, and I agree with Steve Mnuchin that the system need fixing. But you don’t destroy it, you fix it.