RBS studies women in business

By ERIKKA ASKELAND
Published on 04/03/2012 00:00

ROYAL Bank of Scotland will tomorrow launch a groundbreaking study into Scottish women in business.

The bank’s Scotland Index of Women-Owned Businesses will be the first of its kind to gather details of 6,000 such enterprises on its database.

It will be used to monitor trends and provide data on the growth of businesses in Scotland for the use of the Scottish Government, the bank and academia.

A more in-depth index of 200 majority-owned female businesses from a range of sectors will provide the basis of a detailed study, led by Professor Sara Carter, head of the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Strathclyde.

A spokeswoman for Women’s Enterprise Scotland, a community interest company that will co-ordinate the study on behalf of the bank, said: “We aim to have a minimum of 6,000 women-owned businesses on the database within the next 18 months, which represents 10 per cent of the Scottish total.

“This will allow regular surveying, opinion gathering on critical issues and high-level monitoring of trends.”

The index will be launched at an event at RBS’s private bank in Edinburgh, Adam & Co.

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