Supporting consumers and businesses  

Last week, we launched the Disability Finance Code for Entrepreneurship. This report introduces the Code, showcasing best practices already in place among our key signatories, but also highlighting several commitments being made to further widen opportunities for disabled entrepreneurs. Thank you to our signatories Barclays Business Banking, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and NatWest Group for their contribution, and to the Department for Business and Trade, The Lilac Review UK Steering Board and British Business Bank for their collaborative efforts in the creation of the Code.  

In this month’s Economic Insights we looked at the factors behind some bigger than expected GDP and inflation numbers, provided a round-up of the latest decision to cut Bank Rate and the latest assessment of the UK economy from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  

On the international side, we welcomed a delegation of the Circulo de Empresarios, a business association based in Madrid to our Angel Court office. There was particular interest to understand more about the UK’s regulatory reform agenda. We highlighted the strong UK-EU relationship in financial services, where UK-based firms provide firms throughout the European continent with financial services to support their businesses. The discussion demonstrated how the two sectors share many of the same priorities, such as playing a key role in financing the UK and EU’s respective transition to net zero.   

In June we completed our short roundtables series with members on tackling non-financial misconduct. Over 100 members joined the sessions to reflect on recent findings from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and to have the opportunity to share challenges and industry good practice. Thanks to all the members involved.  

Delivering a high growth economy 

This week the government published its Industrial Strategy, setting out its 10-year plan to deliver long-term, regionally balanced, and sustainable economic growth, and underlining its ambition for the UK to become ‘the world’s most innovative full-service financial centre’ by 2035.  
 
We were pleased to see that the Strategy includes several of our recommendations, including our calls to address the complexity and cost of regulation, ensure well-functioning capital markets, remove planning barriers to build new homes and give more certainty to investors in the Net Zero transition, as well as deliver a more flexible approach to enhancing skills and talent through the new Growth and Skills Levy.  

In our latest Business Finance Review we provided a round-up of lending activity to SMEs in the first quarter of 2025. It shows that business lending by the high street banks increased in the first quarter of 2025 to £4.6 billion, a sixth consecutive quarterly rise and the highest amount since the second quarter of 2022. This represents a 14 per cent increase year-on-year, with the rise driven by agriculture, manufacturing, wholesale and retail, and health sectors. 

We submitted consultation responses to:  

Preventing economic crime 

At the beginning of this month, we hosted our first Key Conversation: Fraud event. This coincided with our recent Annual Fraud Report launch. The event brought together senior stakeholders across government, law enforcement, regulators and key public and private sector organisations to discuss challenges, opportunities and the latest strategies in fraud and financial crime prevention.  

We also held our annual Sanctions Conference. We heard from a number of speakers across sectors and disciplines on pressing themes including international sanctions, the impact of trade sanctions, and the crucial role our industry plays within the sanctions landscape.  

This month the DCPCU shared a range of activity including: 

Enabling digital innovation 

On Tuesday we held our flagship Digital Innovation Summit – Innovation for a Better Society exploring how digital innovation – spanning payments, digital identity, AI, capital markets, fraud resilience and financial inclusion – can serve the public good and bolster a resilient financial ecosystem. Congratulations to our winning Ideathon team, NatWest Group, on their idea ‘Pay As You Park’ idea to increase the adoption of Account-to-Account payments and make them attractive to businesses and consumers.  

Our Managing Director of Payments and Innovation Jana Mackintosh featured in the latest episode of Money Box Live where she discussed the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the financial services sector. Exploring how AI is being used within regulation, its use in customer support and the preventative advice for customers to identify AI scams. 

Transitioning to Net Zero   

Besides our leading work on the Warm Homes Plan, the Sustainability team used London Climate Action Week (21-29 Jun) to build engagement with government and regulators to showcase our work. On 24 June, we held a discussion at our Digital Innovation Summit on the interactions between sustainability and information technology for the financial services sector, with representatives from Parliament and the Tony Blair Institute. Elsewhere, we welcomed our partners the RMI for a joint discussion exploring transition assessment practices – “Turning Corporate Transition Intelligence into Action”; and hosted a delegation from the Australian Sustainable Finance Institute ahead of a likely Australian COP31 presidency.  

In regulatory developments, we continue to prepare responses to the Bank of England’s updated supervisory statement on climate-related risks, and proposed amendments to the International Sustainability Standards Board’s (ISSB’s) climate reporting standard. We are holding roundtables with the Bank of England to discuss the climate risk proposals.