Chief Executive's Newsletter - December 2023

As we look ahead to 2024, we will focus on our ‘Building a Better Society’ theme. We want to bring together the work that our members are doing to help improve the lives of people up and down the country by preventing them from becoming victims of fraud, seizing the economic opportunity of transitioning to net zero and helping people to achieve their dream of home ownership or starting a new business.

Supporting consumers and businesses

Charles Roe, Director of Mortgages, UK Finance featured in the latest episode of the Barclays Mortgage Insider podcast. He shared insight and knowledge on different funding mechanisms, variations between traditional building society and banking models and explains the impact of the Consumer Duty.

Delivering a high growth economy

With the expert help of associate member Shearman & Sterling, our International Affairs team published a paper identifying opportunities to promote US-UK financial services trade. The paper focuses on the prudential rulebooks of the USA and the UK, highlighting where the potential for trade facilitation by regulatory recognition measures can be used.

Preventing economic crime

Our Economic Crime team have been promoting a scam warning for consumers ahead of the festive break. With estimates that in December, criminals could steal up to £100 million via payment fraud alone, the team have been sharing the advice from our Take Five to Stop Fraud campaign. You can find out more on Wake up to Money, BBC News online or on BBC Moneybox.

Transitioning to net zero

This month the Sustainability team travelled to COP28 in Dubai. Our Chair, Bob Wigley, opened a panel with the Rocky Mountain Institute and a selection of our members which explored Transition Finance. Ian Bhullar, our Head of Sustainability Policy chaired a panel on the role of banks in financing the transition in the real economy with the French Banking Federation. Both panels provided a forum for useful and energetic discussion.

COP28 provided an excellent opportunity for stakeholder engagement and partnership building. We spoke with Chris Stark, CEO of the UK Climate Change Committee; Tanya Steele, CEO of WWF; Paul Dickinson, Founder and Co-Chair of CDP; and Martin Moloney, the Secretary General of IOSCO. We also met with representatives of the ISSB, the Japanese Financial Services Agency, the Australian Government, and the Centre for Sustainable Finance New Zealand. It was great to see members and key partners on the ground in Dubai.

Enabling digital innovation

Following our flagship Digital Innovation Summit in October, we have published a number of reports which build on the key event themes including:

You can now register your interest for the next Digital Innovation Summit in 2024.

Upcoming events

In 2024, we have a range of networking events, our first Fraud Technical Briefing and our flagship conferences to look forward to. You can now register your interest for these and for our learning opportunities via the new online form.

Area of expertise:

UK Finance