LONDON (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs GS.N on Friday reported a mean gender pay gap in Britain for its international business of 55.5 percent and a mean bonus gap for the unit of 72.2 percent.

FILE PHOTO - A trader works at the Goldman Sachs stall on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, April 16, 2012. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

That gulf in pay comes close to the 59 percent gap revealed on Thursday by HSBC HSBA.L - the biggest yet reported by a British financial firm according to government data.

Thousands of large UK employers have been ordered to disclose their gender pay gaps by April, almost 50 years on from the passage of Britain’s equal pay act.

Goldman Sachs said its gap reflected the fact that there were more men than women in senior positions at the firm.

It also reported a mean gender pay gap of 16.1 percent and a mean bonus gap of 32.5 percent in Goldman Sachs (UK) SVC Limited, which it said employs around 1,600 individuals from non-revenue divisions.

The bank employs 6,000 people in London. The remainder of its UK employees work in its international business.

Other large banks have also been disclosing their gender pay gaps ahead of the April deadline set last year by Prime Minister Theresa May.

The continued gulf in earnings between men and women has attracted significant public attention over the past year or so.

The gender pay gap measures the difference between the average salary of men and women, calculated on an hourly basis.

In Goldman Sachs’ international business, 83 percent of the group earning the highest hourly pay were men, the bank said, while 62.4 percent of those on the lowest hourly pay were women.

This compared with 77.4 percent men in the highest paid group in Goldman Sachs (UK) SVC Limited, and 48.9 percent women in the lowest paid group.

The Wall Street bank said it is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion at all levels of the firm. On Thursday, it said it wanted women to make up half of its global workforce, starting with a target of 50 percent of its new analysts being women by 2021.