Key figures on Australia’s financial landscape met this week to work on solutions for the industry’s gender equality problem.

At luncheon in Melbourne, chief executives of the Commonwealth Bank, Goldman Sachs and ANZ debated the big questions onto gender equality and gender diversity in the financial services industry.

It comes after reports showing financial services is still the worst performing when it comes to gender equality, with a massive at 37.8 per cent gender pay gap.

In finance, women make up 57 per cent of employees but only 23 per cent of executives.

Just 5.3 per cent of financial services industry CEOs are female.

The business community more broadly does itself a great disservice by ignoring the input of half the population, with studies showing that the more women there are in the boardroom, the less a company pays during acquisitions.

But some new plans were made at the lunch event in Melbourne this week, which may work to improve the dismally low representation and wide gaps.

The bank bosses decreed that flexible work would help in lifting women’s participation.

Commonwealth Banks chief executive Ian Narev said that offering flexible work options when needed would support female employees by helping retain them through parenthood and other caring responsibilities.

ANZ’s Mike Smith also encouraged flexible work on all rungs of the management ladder.

Smith said ANZ’s Notable Women initiative had helped female employees get the message out to the media.

“Men bullshit their way through things, women tend to be honest about their experiences. And it's important that they get out there and represent the businesses they partake in,” he said.

Financial news outlet Bloomberg is on board to, introducing a quote quota that means all published work must include at least one woman’s voice.

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick implored industry executives to ask themselves every day; “50/50, if not, why not?”