Strategy and purpose
Our purpose is Helping Britain Prosper.
We do this by creating a more sustainable and inclusive future for people and businesses, shaping finance as a force for good.
Our manifesto
Our mission is everything. It’s what drives us, what makes us different and defines how we profitably grow. It’s how we’ll create a future where our planet is cared for, people feel safe and included, and businesses and communities can thrive.
We serve millions of individuals, families and businesses, big and small, every day. This means we’re better placed than anyone to make the way that we spend, save, borrow, invest and protect what matters, a force for good.
We will lead in the bold decisions we make as a business, from where and how we invest, to the products and services we offer, to the workplace we create. We will search for new ways to work with people, communities and businesses, to always evolve with their needs. And we will never stop innovating to make sustainable, ethical choices easy and rewarding.
With restless energy for positive change, we are reshaping financial services so they’ll work for Britain, for generations to come.
Our strategy
Building on our strong foundations, we have launched a new strategy to transform the business and create higher, more sustainable value.
![Our purpose: Helping Britain Prosper
Our strategic vision: UK customer-focused digital leader and integrated financial services provider, capitalising on new opportunities, at scale.
- Grow: Drive revenue growth and diversification
- Focus: Strengthen cost and capital efficiency
- Change: Maximise the potential of people, technology and data
[Leads to] Higher, more sustainable, returns and capital generation](/assets/images/investors/full-year-results-2021/strategy-infographic.png)
Growth is a core focus of our strategy. Around two-thirds of our £3 billion strategic investment over the next year is aligned to growing and diversifying revenue.
In the Consumer segment, we aim to bring more of our products and services to our existing customers, as well as to innovate and broaden our product offerings and make it easier for customers to access them through our intermediary partners.
In addition, we will create a new mass affluent proposition to grow in this attractive and underserved market segment across banking, protection and simple wealth. In our SME business, we aim to digitise our offering and grow and diversify our revenues in products and sectors where we have lower market share today.
Finally, we will target disciplined growth of our Corporate and Institutional business.
As we invest to grow and diversify our revenue, it is essential to maintain our disciplined cost approach. One of our key imperatives is to reduce our cost of technology run and change. We also need to reduce cost-to-serve our customers through further end-to-end digitisation and, finally, we will reduce our central functions and office footprint overheads.
The Group’s capital efficient business model will be strengthened by our strategic initiatives, continued rigid discipline on pricing and returns, portfolio management and enhancement of capital efficient capabilities. Our new growth initiatives reflect disciplined participation choices, focusing on new, less capital intensive, fee generating businesses.
Delivering this strategy will require the Group to build on the capabilities and new ways-of-working we have developed over the last few years and accelerate the pace at which we use digital technologies and data to support our customers.
Our colleagues’ expertise and skills are instrumental to our success. It is our people who offer the most distinctive customer experiences, will drive us to innovate, take thoughtful risk and enable change at greater pace, delivering for our customers. We will enhance our data and technology estate by taking a Group-wide approach to transforming core functions and capabilities alongside businesses to deliver value.
Our next chapter: 2022 strategy update
Video | 3 mins
Hear from Charlie Nunn, Group Chief Executive and Carla Antunes da Silva, Group Strategy, Corporate Development and Investor Relations Director, on our ambitions and the next chapter of our strategy.
How we're helping Britain prosper
For over 320 years, with our unique family of brands, we have supported Britain through the good times and the bad.
Building an inclusive society
- Improving access to quality housing
- Promoting financial inclusion and education
- Enabling regional development
- 50% female, 13% Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic with 3% Black heritage colleagues in senior roles by 2025
Supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy
- Reduce carbon emissions we finance by >50% by 2030, on the path to net zero by 2050 or sooner
- Net zero own operations by 2030
- Sustainability outcomes embedded across business priorities
Our impact in 2021
£307bn
mortgages
to homeowners
93,000
start ups, small businesses and charities supported
in 2021
c.£7bn
green and ESG related finance delivered
£46m
in community
investment
80,000
first-time homebuyers
supported
193,000
helped small businesses to boost their digital capability
2m
trees planted in partnership
with The Woodland Trust
1,700
digital devices
provided to customers
Related content
2022 half year results
Charlie Nunn, Group Chief Executive, reflects on the first six months of the year and how we’re shaping up for the rest of 2022 and beyond.
Strategy downloads
See our strategy updates and documents back to 2011.
Helping through the pandemic
Hear how our colleagues have helped during the pandemic.