TIDMLLOY
RNS Number : 6005Y
Lloyds Banking Group PLC
13 May 2021
13 May 2021
Lloyds Banking Group plc ("the Company")
Live Shareholder Event Statements
The following statements were made at a virtual shareholder
event today by the Group's Chair, Robin Budenberg, Interim Group
Chief Executive Officer, William Chalmers, and the Chair of the
Responsible Business Committee, Sara Weller.
Speech by Robin Budenberg, Group Chair, Lloyds Banking Group
Welcome everyone to the Lloyds Banking Group virtual shareholder
event which we are holding ahead of our actual AGM next week.
I'm Robin Budenberg and I've been Group Chair since January,
having joined the Board in October last year. So, this is my first
Lloyds Banking Group shareholder event.
These are important events, which allow us to engage directly
with you, our shareholders, and give you the opportunity to ask us
questions. In keeping with the updates we normally provide you at
the AGM, today I would like to say a few words about:
-- Changes to our Board in 2020;
-- An overview of our performance in 2020;
-- The resumption of our dividend;
-- Our remuneration policy;
-- The HBOS Reading fraud; and
-- Some reflections from me as I begin my tenure as Chair and
some comments on our plans for 2021.
So first, changes to the Group's Board. It is only fitting that
I start by thanking my predecessor, Lord Blackwell, who has held
the Chair role for these last six years. Norman's dedication and
tireless work in this position means he has left us with strong
governance and a clear purpose and strategy.
This is also our first shareholder event since António
Horta-Osório stepped down as CEO. Over the last decade he has led
our transformation, delivering our purpose of Helping Britain
Prosper while creating a truly customer focused business
underpinned by strong financial foundations. I'd like to thank him
on behalf of the Board, and wish him all the best in his new role
at Credit Suisse.
Later this year, we look forward to welcoming Charlie Nunn as
Group Chief Executive. As we said when announcing his appointment,
Charlie will bring world-class operational, technological and
strategic expertise to build on the strengths of our existing
team.
In the meantime, I would like to thank William Chalmers for
assuming the responsibilities of Interim Chief Executive in this
period. His steady hand will be key to setting us up for future
success and allowing Charlie to hit the ground running.
In addition, there have been some other changes to our Board in
the last twelve months. In January of this year, Catherine Woods
took over the role of Chair of the Board Risk Committee. Catherine
joined the Board in March 2020 and has extensive experience in the
banking industry. I would like to thank Nick Prettejohn who held
the role of Chair of the Board Risk Committee last year on an
interim basis.
We announced in September that Simon Henry was leaving the
Board. Sarah Legg has now taken on his role as Chair of the Audit
Committee. Sarah was Group Financial Controller at HSBC until early
2019, following a long career in financial leadership roles.
And finally, earlier this year, we announced that Sara Weller
would retire as Chair of the Responsible Business Committee and as
a Non-Executive Director later this month. I would like to thank
Sara for her leadership and commitment in chairing the Committee
since it was created in 2015. I am pleased to welcome Amanda
Mackenzie, a Non-Executive Director since 2018, to the role of
Chair of the Responsible Business Committee following Sara's
retirement.
I'd like to thank all our Board Members for their contribution
and hard work over the past year. We announced a number of
important changes, notably to the Chair and CEO roles, and the
Board played a key role in providing stability, continuity and
guidance. From a personal perspective, I would like to thank them
for making me feel so welcome since I joined the Group.
2020 will be remembered as a year dominated by the COVID-19
pandemic and our response to that and to the economic crisis that
followed.
In many ways, it was the ultimate test of our commitment to the
Group's purpose of Helping Britain Prosper. You will hear more from
William about the variety of ways in which we have been supporting
our colleagues, customers and communities through the pandemic -
but I would like to take this opportunity to recognise the efforts
of every Lloyds Banking Group colleague who has worked through this
crisis, especially those who have been serving our customers in our
branches and call centres.
Your response in the last year has been nothing short of
monumental, and you have made me incredibly proud to become a part
of this business. Thank you from me, and from the Group's Board,
for all that you have achieved.
Despite the impacts of the pandemic, our financial performance
has also demonstrated the Group's underlying strength and the
benefits of being a focused, sustainable, efficient and low risk UK
financial services leader.
William will talk through the numbers in detail but, given the
background, we were pleased to report an underlying profit of
GBP2.2 billion and statutory profit before tax of GBP1.2 billion.
We also continued our strategic investment in the Group, with a
particular focus on digitising our products and processes -
something that proved incredibly important in helping our
colleagues and customers respond to the pandemic.
Regarding our dividend. Last year, following a request to all
banks by the Prudential Regulation Authority, the Group suspended
dividends on ordinary shares and cancelled the final dividend for
2019. These decisions were not taken lightly and I'm sure will have
come as a disappointment to you, our shareholders.
However, our capital position has remained strong as a result
and, following the PRA announcement in December, the Board was
therefore able to recommend a total ordinary dividend of 0.57 pence
per share - the maximum allowable within the PRA guidelines.
We recognise the importance of the dividend to many of our
shareholders. The PRA has said that they will consider their
guidance on 2021 dividends before banks announce their half-year
results, so the Board expects to be in a position to discuss
interim dividends when it reviews the performance of the business
for the first half of the year. Our position on quarterly dividends
will also be confirmed at this time.
The Board remains committed to future capital returns. In 2021,
subject to regulatory guidance, the Board intends to grow the
dividend from 2020, in line with the Group's progressive and
sustainable ordinary dividend policy.
Now let me turn to executive remuneration, rightfully an
important topic for our shareholders.
As I have said, last year was a challenging one for our
customers and for the economy, and it is therefore appropriate that
this was reflected in remuneration across the Group for 2020.
In April last year, all members of the Group executive team
asked not to be considered for their bonus entitlement for 2020 - a
decision they made in solidarity with the communities in which we
operate and in recognition of the priorities of our
stakeholders.
However, because we didn't meet our profit target threshold for
2020, there was in fact no bonus pool at all for last year, so no
bonuses were paid at any level of the business.
We did, however, want to recognise the tremendous hard work and
commitment of our colleagues, who have gone above and beyond for
our customers every day and have done so under extraordinary
circumstances. We have therefore given all colleagues a share award
of GBP400, and gave nearly 40,000 customer-facing colleagues a
GBP250 recognition award last summer.
We have also resumed above-inflation pay increases this year for
most of our people, geared toward those colleagues on lower pay.
Therefore while our senior leaders took a very significant pay cut
for the year, most of our staff saw their total remuneration
protected and those at the most junior levels saw an increase on
2019. Again, this was the right thing to do.
I would also like to give a brief update on the HBOS Reading
fraud, understandably an important issue to many of our
shareholders.
We have published several updates on our website on the actions
the Group has taken to address the criminal activities that took
place between 2003 and 2007, as well as learning the necessary
lessons. I encourage shareholders to read these detailed updates
which I hope address many of your questions.
Actions taken have included apologising to the customers
affected and seeking to compensate them fairly and generously.
Following the independent report by Sir Ross Cranston on our
initial compensation review, we have taken forward his
recommendations in a further review of customer direct and
consequential loss compensation by an independent Panel led by Sir
David Foskett. The Foskett Panel has begun issuing its first
outcomes to customers and we are giving them all the resources and
assistance they require to provide closure for customers.
We continue to cooperate fully with the ongoing Dame Linda Dobbs
enquiry, which the Board set up to look at our handling of the
investigations following the HBOS acquisition.
Importantly, we continue to learn what we can from this
situation so that we can better serve our customers and
shareholders in future. That has meant being honest about the
things we haven't done well - the times our culture and
communications have been too legalistic or lacking in empathy for
instance. I have no doubt that there will be further lessons to be
learnt, particularly from Dame Linda's review, before we draw this
matter finally to a close. The most important thing of all though
is to provide real closure for impacted customers.
Finally, I wanted to finish with some broader thoughts as I
start out as Chair of Lloyds Banking Group.
Before joining, I was all too aware of the Group's reach and
impact in UK communities. Not only is Lloyds Banking Group the UK's
largest retail and commercial financial services provider - it is
also a historic institution with an established reputation and
relationships across the country.
As a result, the critical role Lloyds Banking Group will play in
helping Britain recover from the pandemic cannot be overstated. Our
main responsibility is to be there for our customers and
communities today, helping them through the challenging times we're
in. But we also have a responsibility to be thinking about the next
five and even fifty years, anticipating the changes we know are
coming and planning for society's future prosperity.
I have spoken recently about four key principles which I believe
will underpin the UK's future economic progress and which will need
to be embraced by any business seeking to participate in a
successful recovery - including our own.
These are:
First, innovation driven by technology. We saw a nearly 20%
increase in customers using our mobile app at the start of the
pandemic. Following these technology-driven trends has never been
optional, but now it is an essential part of building successful
businesses.
Second, the importance of local economies. We've seen a huge
shift of spending away from traditional city hubs, particularly
London, in the last year. Seven in ten consumers plan to spend more
on local businesses than in the previous year. We need to spread
prosperity across the UK with a mindset shift that empowers local
voices to do the right thing for local economies.
Third, environmental sustainability. The green economy is
expected to grow at four times the rate of the economy as a whole,
and we've seen demand for electric vehicles grow by some two and a
half times in our vehicle leasing business. But I believe the moral
imperative is more important than the economic trend. We must embed
sustainable principles in everything we do, even when times are as
difficult as they are today.
That brings me to the last principle, social purpose. Our
insight suggests two in three consumers think businesses should be
doing more to help society and the environment - and that's even
higher for the younger generations. This clearly is what our
purpose, Helping Britain Prosper, is all about - including our
ongoing work to build a more inclusive culture and support for
those most in need across the UK's communities. We must continue
building social purpose into everything we do.
All four of these themes were starting to emerge before the
pandemic hit, but have been dramatically accelerated in its wake.
Reassuringly, they have been at the heart of Lloyds Banking Group's
ethos for many years and underpin the plans we have made to Help
Britain Recover in 2021.
That purpose is at the heart of Strategic Review 2021: a series
of commitments we outlined in February focusing on the areas of
society where we believe we can make the most difference, while
continuing to develop Lloyds Banking Group's capabilities to create
the UK's preferred financial partner for personal customers and the
best bank for business.
Our plans are based on clear execution priorities for 2021,
underpinned by long term strategic vision. William will be giving
more detail on these plans shortly - but having been heavily
involved in the development of the strategy, the Board is highly
supportive of our direction and excited about the opportunities it
presents for all our stakeholders.
In summary, therefore, 2020 will go down as a challenging and
redefining period in UK history - but also as a pivotal moment for
Lloyds Banking Group.
Although the outlook is uncertain, the pandemic provides a
unique opportunity for banks to demonstrate their commitment to
customers, colleagues, the economy and broader society.
We have to support people through the very real challenges they
are currently facing. Although some have paid down debt and saved,
many others have seen rising debt and falling financial resilience.
Our plans for recovery must be sensitive to these challenges.
And we also have to play our part in working to address the
disparities the pandemic has underlined, particularly along
regional, racial and generational lines. Helping Britain Recover
encapsulates all these responsibilities.
I have great confidence in the Group's direction for the years
ahead. We have the right team; a clear purpose and strategic
direction; and a fundamentally resilient business, all of which
will drive our success as the UK recovers from the pandemic.
I want to express my thanks, again, to our colleagues for their
resilience and to our customers for their patience in the last year
- and I would like to thank all of you for your support of the
Group and for listening today. I believe we have a lot to look
forward to, and I truly hope that next year I will be speaking to
you in person.
Thank you.
Speech by William Chalmers, Interim Group Chief Executive
Officer, Lloyds Banking Group
Thank you Robin and I would like to echo your words of thanks to
both Lord Blackwell and António for their very significant
contributions to Lloyds Banking Group. Both have been a tremendous
source of guidance and leadership for the Group and also for me
personally in my time here.
I am very pleased to be here as Interim Group Chief Executive,
ahead of Charlie Nunn joining us as Group Chief Executive in
August.
My speech today will focus on three areas. I'll give some more
detail on our performance in 2020, both in terms of our numbers and
our response to the coronavirus pandemic.
I'll then talk about our strategy - the outcomes of our last
strategic plan and the objectives for Strategic Review 2021 which
we announced in February.
Finally, I'll finish with a look at our performance in the first
quarter of 2021 which we published at the end of April.
First, our financial performance in 2020. As Robin said, while
COVID-19 clearly had a significant impact during the year, our
resilient business model enabled us to deliver profitability
despite the challenging macroeconomic environment. The 2020 results
we reported in February showed both the strength of our customer
franchise and balance sheet and that our strategy has
delivered.
For the 2020 financial year, we reported an underlying profit of
GBP2.2 billion and statutory profit before tax of GBP1.2 billion.
Net income for the year was GBP14.4 billion, down 16% on 2019
reflecting reductions in net interest income and other income as a
result of the pandemic.
We further reduced total costs at the same time as continuing to
invest in digital projects and absorbing additional
coronavirus-related expenses. Last year underlined the importance
of this investment in digital, positioning us well to support our
customers and their changing needs.
We reported an elevated impairment charge for the year of GBP4.2
billion. While this was below the range we forecast at the half
year, it highlighted the potential economic impact of the pandemic
on our customers. For now we remain in a stable economic
environment, significantly due to the Government's economic support
measures, and we continue to be very well provisioned against the
uncertainties ahead.
Our strong balance sheet and capital position enabled us to
continue to support our customers and the UK economy throughout
2020. We grew our lending in key segments such as mortgages, where
we increased our open mortgage book by over GBP5.2 billion across
the year. We achieved our 2020 commitment of extending GBP18
billion in gross lending to UK businesses, including exceeding our
three-year GBP6 billion target of increased annual net lending to
start-ups. Meanwhile, we saw a GBP39 billion increase in customer
deposit balances, reflecting the strength of our trusted brands in
an uncertain environment.
Looking ahead, many uncertainties remain but we saw some
stability in the second half of 2020 and, as I'll discuss later,
the first signs of recovery in 2021.
These figures demonstrate the Group's underlying health and
resilience, but they tell only part of the story of our efforts in
2020.
All organisations had to make drastic changes in response to the
pandemic and Lloyds Banking Group has been no different. We are
incredibly proud of how our people and our business has adapted. We
believe our response has been powerful in ensuring our customers
are supported, our people are safe and our business remains
fundamentally resilient and healthy.
For our customers, we adapted quickly to give them access to the
services and support they needed, through the channels their
circumstances required.
We were able to keep more than 90% of our branches open at the
height of the first lockdown and have averaged 97% thereafter. At
the same time more and more customers turned to digital and online
banking. Our position as the UK's leading digital bank meant we
were well placed to meet their needs. Indeed, we saw our active
digital banking customers increase to 17.4 million - two million
more than the prior year - with new record levels of customer
satisfaction.
Our rapid response meant we could get help to those that needed
it most. We introduced dedicated phone lines for elderly customers
and frontline NHS staff. To date we have provided around 1.3
million payment holidays for mortgages, loans, credit cards and
motor finance to customers experiencing difficulty or needing some
financial breathing space. It's good to see that the vast majority
of customers who originally took a payment holiday have now
returned to making payments.
Inevitably, responding to such a high volume of change in a
short period of time caused some disruption to our services, such
as call waiting times. We've sought to address these as soon as
possible and are grateful to our customers for bearing with us as
we've adapted.
For businesses, we listened to the challenges they're facing and
stepped up our support to help them through a uniquely challenging
period. We have provided over GBP12 billion through the
government-backed lending schemes to date, as well as 34,000
capital repayment holidays to ease the financial pressures that
many faced.
For our people, we committed to paying all employees in full -
whatever their circumstances - to give peace of mind and help them
focus on our customers. We also continued to put their mental and
physical health top of the agenda, launching a colleague wellbeing
portal and providing free subscriptions to the wellbeing app,
Headspace.
More broadly, alongside efforts to address the impact of the
pandemic, we maintained our focus on the social and economic issues
facing UK society.
2020 was an important year in raising awareness of the need for
significant societal change. We know that Lloyds Banking Group has
a leading role to play in this process. In July, we launched our
Race Action Plan - the first commitment of its kind by a FTSE100
company. This includes a public goal to specifically increase Black
representation in senior roles to align with the overall UK labour
market, at the same time tackling issues like career progression,
cultural awareness and our values and behaviours.
Since the launch of the plan, we have created a Race Advisory
Panel to hold us accountable as we shape and create policies that
build an inclusive culture at Lloyds Banking Group.
Climate change remains one of the biggest issues facing the UK
today. We are committed to supporting the transition to a low
carbon economy to embed sustainable principles into everything we
do. A green recovery is one of the central pillars of our plans to
help Britain recover from the pandemic.
We have been on this journey for many years, providing over
GBP7.3 billion in green finance since 2016 and powering the
equivalent of 10.1 million homes through our support to renewable
energy projects since the start of 2018.
But we know the path to a low carbon economy requires us to take
a long term view with near term action. That's why we have
accelerated our plans to work with customers, government and wider
stakeholders to reduce the emissions we finance by more than 50 per
cent by 2030. This will set us on our path to achieve net zero by
2050 or sooner, while also seeking to make our own carbon footprint
net zero by 2030.
Sara will give some more detail on how we're seeking to be a
responsible and sustainable business - but in short, we believe our
commitments encourage a long term approach to climate change, while
recognising the urgency it demands.
The action we have taken on all these issues - from culture
change to climate change - is part of taking our purpose to Help
Britain Prosper seriously. This purpose has underpinned all our
efforts to help Britain recover from the pandemic and it forms an
integral part of our strategic plans for 2021.
Before I walk you through Strategic Review 2021, I'd like to
acknowledge that 2020 was also the final year of our most recent
three year strategic plan, GSR3, launched in 2018 to transform the
Group for success in a digital world.
Over that three year period, we invested nearly GBP3 billion to
enhance the experience of our customers, accelerate the
digitisation of the Group and transform our ways of working.
As well as strengthening our position as the UK's largest
digital bank, demonstrated by the growth in digital customers, we
increased the proportion of our products that originate through
digital channels from 68 per cent in 2017 to 85 per cent today.
We lent around GBP40 billion to first time buyers, significantly
above our GBP30 billion commitment.
For our Commercial Banking clients, we exceeded our GBP6 billion
target of additional net lending to start-ups, SMEs and Mid Market
customers and achieved our GBP18 billion commitment in 2020 for
gross new lending to UK businesses.
We've also driven growth across a number of core markets,
including the creation of a comprehensive Insurance and Wealth
offering. As part of this we have enhanced our position in
financial planning and retirement through the Schroders Personal
Wealth joint venture, with an ambition to become a top three
financial planning business provider by the end of 2025. We have
also significantly grown our market shares in home insurance,
corporate pensions and individual annuities.
All these efforts provided the foundations for the next phase of
our strategy, Strategic Review 2021.
At its heart, Strategic Review 2021 seeks to build Lloyds'
position as the UK's preferred financial partner for personal
customers and the best bank for business. We will do this by
unlocking coordinated growth opportunities across our core business
areas of Retail, Insurance & Wealth and Commercial Banking,
supported by enhancements in our key capabilities: payments, data,
technology and our people.
We continue to be driven by our purpose of Helping Britain
Prosper, shifting our focus in 2021 to Helping Britain Recover. In
this, we will focus on five key areas, embedded in our businesses,
where we believe we can make the biggest difference to help us
recognise this purpose:
-- First, we will help rebuild households' financial health and
wellbeing by providing practical support to help our customers
facing financial difficulty get back on track.
-- Second, we will support businesses to recover, adapt and
grow. This includes developing recovery plans for our customers,
supporting at least 75,000 UK businesses to start up in 2021 and
helping at least 185,000 small businesses boost their digital
capabilities through our local academies and partnerships.
-- Third, we will expand the availability of affordable and
quality homes across the UK, providing GBP10 billion of lending to
help people buy their first home in 2021 and GBP1.5 billion of new
funding to support social housing.
-- Fourth, we will help accelerate the transition to a low
carbon economy. Alongside the commitments I outlined earlier, 2021
will also see us expand the funding available under our green
finance initiatives from GBP3 billion to GBP5 billion. We will also
introduce a fossil fuel-free fund to support green growth.
-- And fifth, we will continue to help build an inclusive
society and organisation by setting new aspirational goals for a
leadership team that reflects the society we serve. This includes;
50% of senior roles being held by women, 13% by our Black, Asian
and Minority Ethnic colleagues and 3% specifically by Black
colleagues by 2025.
It is also important that we reimagine our ways of working to
meet the needs of our people as we emerge from the pandemic into a
world that is going to be fundamentally different. We know from
recent surveys that 80% of our employees who did not previously
work from home would like to do so for a material part of the week
in future. When they are in the office they want to spend time
collaborating. We will create a future-ready workspace to
facilitate this, while seeking to reduce our office space by around
20 per cent over the next three years. Together this will deliver a
more sustainable workplace for our colleagues and our business.
Stepping back, Strategic Review 2021 provides us with clear
focus and targets to execute for the coming year, underpinned by
long-term strategic thinking. We believe this combination will
enable us to build our leadership position as the UK's preferred
financial partner.
In addition, in executing Strategic Review 2021 we aim to
deliver long-term shareholder value. We are targeting a return on
tangible equity in excess of cost of equity over the medium
term.
Our Q1 Results in April demonstrated early progress against our
plans. In the first three months of this year we lent nearly GBP4
billion to first time buyers and in March recorded our biggest
month for total mortgage completions since 2008. We also launched a
new Halifax branded digital-first protection product, saw a 75%
increase in Schroders Personal Wealth referrals, supported by our
new Relationship Consultants, all alongside a 130% increase in
users of our Business Finance Assistant accounting proposition for
commercial customers.
And in April we joined as a founding member of the Net Zero
Banking Alliance to help accelerate the transition to a low carbon
economy and achieve our net zero by 2050 ambitions. These are just
a few indicators of how Strategic Review 2021 is helping us achieve
our broader objective of Helping Britain Recover from the
pandemic.
Our Q1 results also demonstrated encouraging financial progress
and growth in our business. Statutory profit before tax was GBP1.9
billion, significantly above consensus and up on both Q4 and the
previous year, while net income for the quarter was GBP3.7 billion
up 2% on Q4. In a challenging environment, the Group continued to
demonstrate cost discipline with total costs of GBP1.9 billion,
down 2% year on year while we also spent GBP0.2 billion in
strategic investment, putting us on track to meet our target of
GBP0.9 billion in 2021.
Business momentum was positive, with our open mortgage book
growing by GBP6.0 billion in the first three months of the year. We
also saw a notable increase in retail current accounts of GBP5.6
billion, demonstrating our business strength in a subdued
environment. Credit quality remained strong which, together with an
improved economic outlook, resulted in a net impairment credit of
GBP323 million in the quarter driven by an overall GBP459 million
release of expected credit loss provisions.
While the economic outlook remains uncertain, the continued
success of the vaccine roll-out and additional government support
measures saw us improve our forecast for UK GDP growth in 2021 from
3% to 5%.
Given the solid financial performance in the first quarter of
2021, we have enhanced our guidance for 2021. Based on the Group's
current economic assumptions, we now expect our net interest margin
to be in excess of 245 basis points, net asset quality ratio to be
below 25 basis points and statutory return on tangible equity for
the Group to be between 8 and 10 per cent, excluding a circa 2.5
percentage point benefit from anticipated changes in the corporate
tax rate.
Therefore, while we still have a lot to do to keep supporting
the UK recovery, the first quarter shows positive progress against
our plans and represents a solid start to 2021.
To finish, I'd like to join Robin in paying tribute to all those
who have been working for the Group in the last year. Our
colleagues have faced so many challenges, from working from home
for the first time, to implementing social distancing in branches
from scratch.
As well as working tirelessly to support our customers and each
other, they have embodied our purpose by actively contributing to
the communities they're a part of - often while juggling
challenging responsibilities at home. Their 'can-do' attitude and
willingness to always go the extra mile has been nothing short of
outstanding.
The quality of our people, our clear purpose and our bold plans
for 2021 all give me great confidence in the future of our
organisation.
Thank you all for your time and I look forward to answering your
questions later on.
Speech by Sara Weller, Chair of the Responsible Business
Committee, Lloyds Banking Group
Thank you. As this will be my final AGM, I'm delighted to have
the chance, even in this unique way, to update you on the work of
the Responsible Business Committee.
With the Group's unique position at the heart of the British
economy, we firmly believe it's our responsibility to help address
the economic, social and environmental challenges the UK faces.
Covid-19 has affected all of us and transformed the society in
which we live. Therefore our priority, and the focus of the
Responsible Business Committee, is to do what we can to help the UK
recover in an inclusive and sustainable way.
Today I'd like to share some examples of how we have sought to
live out our purpose in the past year, working with others to
address vital issues like mental health, domestic abuse and digital
skills - before finishing with a look at what's coming up in the
next year.
To take the first of those - it has never been more important to
care for mental health, wellbeing and resilience given the extra
pressures the pandemic has placed on us all.
That's why Lloyds Banking Group moved quickly at the start of
the first lockdown to increase support for our colleagues by adding
to our online tools and resources, including free subscriptions to
the Headspace app which provides mental health and wellbeing
advice. 16,000 of our people have taken advantage of this resource
to date.
At the same time, we continued our work with Mental Health UK to
enable the charity to increase the capacity of the UK's first
Mental Health and Money Advice Service.
Sadly, the country also saw an increase in cases of domestic
abuse after the start of lockdown. We sought to support colleagues
going through this by introducing an emergency support service for
anyone affected by domestic abuse, allowing them to access safe,
secure accommodation and get professional advice on their next
steps.
Another area of focus has been helping businesses, individuals
and charities access vital digital skills. Just before last year's
AGM, we introduced a new dedicated phone line with We Are Digital
to provide guidance and remote training to customers who couldn't
access our branches. The service has supported 13,000 digitally
excluded people to date, helping them learn everyday digital tasks
like online banking, booking appointments and having video calls
with loved ones. Our Lloyds Bank Digital Academy has worked
alongside these initiatives to help over 85,000 people and business
owners develop their digital literacy.
Finally, our independent charitable foundations stepped up their
support for small and local charities during the pandemic, who were
seeing increased demands on their services at the same time as
seeing incomes reduced. To support these efforts, Lloyds Banking
Group committed to maintain its funding to the Foundations for
2021, locking in over GBP50 million across two years and giving
certainty at a very uncertain time.
These examples complement the fantastic individual efforts of
our colleagues, who stepped up as delivery drivers and emergency
paramedics, among other things, to help their communities while
doing their day jobs. We're incredibly proud of these efforts.
However, not all the challenges of the last year resulted from
the pandemic. We have continued to develop and strengthen our
commitments to tackle underlying issues such as climate change.
Robin and William have outlined our headline commitments to reduce
our carbon footprint and help the UK transition to a low carbon
economy.
To provide some additional detail, our latest annual report saw
us publish an initial estimate of our 2018 financed emissions
baseline and developed our first emissions intensity reduction
ambition for the power sector. Further sector targets will be
published throughout 2021.
And earlier this year, Scottish Widows became the first major
Pensions and Insurance provider to target halving the carbon
footprint of all of its GBP170bn investments by 2030, on its path
to net zero by 2050.
Alongside these efforts, we have continued our work to build an
inclusive organisation that reflects the communities we serve.
William has spoken today about the Race Action Plan we launched in
July last year and the progress we are already making.
Building on this, our charitable foundation for England and
Wales committed to allocate 25% of its grant funding to charities
led by, and serving, communities of racial minorities. In the first
round of grants under the new commitment, 38% of funding was
allocated to charities from ethnic minority backgrounds.
We know we have a long way to go, but we believe these to be
positive steps towards a more inclusive organisation and
society.
As we look ahead to 2021 and beyond, the Group will continue its
work on the critical aspects of being a responsible business, with
a renewed focus on Helping Britain Recover. Importantly, we want
this to be a recovery with economic stability, environmental
sustainability and social inclusivity at its heart.
Our specific 2021 commitments include expanding the funding
available under our green finance initiatives from GBP3 billion to
GBP5 billion; training 6,500 colleagues to support customers with
debt advice; and providing GBP10 billion of lending to help people
buy their first home in 2021.
Through pledges such as these, we will continue to target the
areas where we can make the most difference and identify new
opportunities to take a leadership role in building a more
sustainable and inclusive society.
There will be lots we have to learn along the way, and we may
not always get it right - but we believe this to be the appropriate
response to our purpose of Helping Britain Prosper and an essential
component of building a successful recovery.
In the year ahead, we will therefore stay focused on embedding
these principles into our strategy, our processes and our
culture.
Before I close, I just wanted to say that it has been my great
pleasure to chair our Responsible Business Committee over the past
six years, and play a part in steering the contributions of the
Group as it continues to Help Britain Recover.
Thank you for listening.
For further information:
Investor Relations
Douglas Radcliffe
Group Investor Relations Director
Email: douglas.radcliffe@lloydsbanking.com +44 (0) 20 7356 1571
Group Corporate Affairs
Matt Smith
Head of Media Relations
Email: matt.smith@lloydsbanking.com +44 (0) 20 7356 3522
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elsewhere including the implementation and interpretation of key
laws, legislation and regulation together with any resulting impact
on the future structure of the Group; the ability to attract and
retain senior management and other employees and meet its diversity
objectives; actions or omissions by the Group's directors,
management or employees including industrial action; changes in the
Group's ability to develop sustainable finance products and the
Group's capacity to measure the climate impact from its financing
activity, which may affect the Group's ability to achieve its
climate ambition; changes to the Group's post-retirement defined
benefit scheme obligations; the extent of any future impairment
charges or write-downs caused by, but not limited to, depressed
asset valuations, market disruptions and illiquid markets; the
value and effectiveness of any credit protection purchased by the
Group; the inability to hedge certain risks economically; the
adequacy of loss reserves; the actions of competitors, including
non-bank financial services, lending companies and digital
innovators and disruptive technologies; and exposure to regulatory
or competition scrutiny, legal, regulatory or competition
proceedings, investigations or complaints. Please refer to the
latest Annual Report on Form 20-F filed by Lloyds Banking Group plc
with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC), which is
available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov, for a discussion of
certain factors and risks.
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END
MSCSFAFMDEFSEEI
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