OMFIF has released its Gender Balance Index 2026 and as a proud OMFIF Community Partner, EDGE Certified Foundation is pleased to share and support this important work.
Financial institutions worldwide have made modest but meaningful progress in advancing gender balance in senior leadership – even amid heightened political scrutiny of diversity and inclusion initiatives, according to this year’s OMFIF Gender Balance Index.
The report, now in its 13th edition, analyses the state of gender parity in leadership roles across the financial sector. The 2026 edition explores the journey towards reaching gender balance across central banks, commercial banks, pension funds and sovereign funds, based on data from more than 300 institutions, covering over 6,000 individuals.
The dedicated in-focus chapter on policy highlights an important consideration for employers – progress on gender balance is unlikely to accelerate without addressing the structural constraints that shape career outcomes. This points to the need for more deliberate, system-level action, such as measuring representation across the pipeline, supporting access to affordable and reliable childcare, enabling flexible working arrangements that do not penalize career progression, and embedding transparency and accountability into hiring and promotion processes.
These considerations align closely with the EDGE methodology, which looks not only at outcomes like representation and pay equity, but also at the effectiveness of the policies and practices that drive them. By combining objective, measurable evidence with independent verification, EDGE Certification enables organizations to identify structural barriers, focus on the actions that matter most, and track progress in a way that is both credible and sustained over time.
