Banking giant publishes major economic study on the impact of women in business which looked at Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Bristol, Newcastle, Leeds, London, Glasgow and Edinburgh – but not Liverpool. Tony McDonough reports.

On the day the Women In Business Awards celebrates the best of Liverpool city region’s female entrepreneurial talent – according to banking giant NatWest, we have no female entrepreneurs.

In the past couple of days NatWest has unveiled a major study into the economic impact of women in business.

As well as offering a national picture, the bank focused its research of most of the major cities in England, Wales and Scotland.

They included Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Bristol, Newcastle, Leeds, London, Glasgow and Edinburgh – but not Liverpool.

A spokeswoman for NatWest told YBNews that it used a set of data from a research company called Developments Economics, which didn’t include Liverpool.

However, when we contacted Development Economics it told us it was NatWest that set the list of cities to be analysed and that Liverpool wasn’t on it.

“There was no reason why we could not have looked at Liverpool but it wasn’t on the list,” it added.

The research revealed that female entrepreneurs contributed £325m every year to the North West economy with a separate figure of £124m for Manchester.

We would love to have told you the Liverpool figure but, of course, we don’t have it.

FromYBNews’s own coverage over the past few months we know that Liverpool city region has a wealth of entrepreneurial talent – both male and female.

Liverpool is also home to The Women’s Organisation which has helped thousands of women launch their own businesses over the past two decades.

It’s a pity NatWest, which has many small business customers in Merseyside, has chosen to ignore that.