Is the glass ceiling for women in business starting to crack? An unprecedented number of women now hold seats in the boardrooms of the largest banks in the US, with more than one-third of board positions now occupied by women, Bloomberg reports. But while women are advancing in terms of the number of seats, men still occupy the positions with the greatest power, enabling them to call the shots. This year, Citigroup’s Jane Fraser became the only woman CEO among 19 members of the S&P 500 Banks Index. None of the companies on the index has a woman in the chairman’s seat, and only three women are lead directors, a position that is designed to act as “a check” on chairmen.

How are we faring in Egypt? As of last July, around 85% of EGX-listed businesses have at least one woman sitting on their boards, after the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) introduced the requirement in 2020 in a bid to end all-male boards. The FRA then upped that requirement last year to require the boards of EGX-listed firms and non-banking financial services companies to be at least 25% composed of women.

Just don’t ask whether women are getting equal pay for equal work…

Big Oil is on a hiring spree as competition for carbon-emissions traders heats up: BP and Royal Dutch Shell have hired “an array” of carbon-emissions traders to replace multiple staff members lost to trading houses in 2021, Bloomberg reports. As the cost of emissions continues rising, competition’s grown over the last year for experienced traders of carbon credits and offsets — which the oil majors are active in, Bloomberg notes. Now, firms like commodity trading companies Trafigura and Mercuria and investment banks like Citigroup are looking to get in on the action — leaving Big Oil on a mission to replenish its ranks of environmental-products traders, it adds.

Brits, brace yourselves — the upcoming months may be tough on your wallets: UK citizens are staring down the barrel of an “acute cost-of-living crunch” thanks to high tax hikes, surging interest rates, and pervasive inflation, Bloomberg reports. The impending “living standards catastrophe” is expected to materialize in April, experts suggest, coinciding with a 50% rise on the ceiling for national energy costs, while higher taxes will be introduced in an effort to shore up public finances. UK inflation accelerated to a 30-year high of 5.4% in December, raising pressure on the Bank of England to raise interest rates to rein in price surges. Altogether, these factors are set to all but obliterate the impact of wage gains, with the Center for Economics and Business Research estimating that expenses for an average UK household will rise by GBP 2k before taxes surge.

In other UK news, crypto ads could be marketed to only wealthy and experienced investors, as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is looking to protect consumers from high-risk investments, according to a press release. Advertisements would only be able to target investors if they are “high net worth or sophisticated” and are required to be clear, fair and not misleading. The FCA will await feedback on the proposal until 23 March before coming to a final decision during the summer.

Hackers have broken into Red Cross’ servers, gaining access to data of over 515k vulnerable people, reports the Associated Press. These include people “separated from their families due to conflict, migration and disaster, missing persons and their families, and people in detention.” The breach had targeted an external contractor in Switzerland who stores data for the Red Cross. So far, there is no indication who is behind the attack and whether they will choose to leak the information.