Investing in Women Code

The Investing in Women Code is a commitment to support the advancement of female entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom by improving female entrepreneurs’ access to tools, resources and finance from the financial services sector.

A diverse and inclusive business ecosystem is good for customers, entrepreneurs, businesses, investors, and society. The Department for Business and Trade and the signatory firms share a commitment to work in partnership to make the United Kingdom one of the most attractive countries in the world to start and grow a business by advancing female entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom.

The Investing in Women Code is designed for all organisations that finance entrepreneurs.

The Code commits organisations to promoting female entrepreneurship by:

having a nominated member of the senior leadership team who will be responsible for supporting equality in access to finance
increasing the transparency of financial services firms’ data concerning support for female entrepreneurs
adopting internal practices to improve the outlook for female entrepreneurs

Signatory commitments

1. Nominate a member of the senior leadership team responsible for supporting equality

2. Provide data to the Department for Business and Trade nominated industry body to be published annually on an aggregated and anonymised basis

3. Adopt internal practices to improve female entrepreneurs’ access to finance needed to start and grow success businesses

Signatories are expected to make this commitment public on their websites.

Investing in Women Report 2024

The 2024 Investing in Women Code report shows the importance of data collection to establish the true picture of access to finance for women-led businesses.

Download Report (.pdf, 4.21mb)