LONDON (Reuters) – Lloyds Banking Group is set to make an extra 300 million pounds ($380 million) a year in revenue by 2026 from its business banking unit, CEO Charlie Nunn said on Thursday, as corporate confidence picks up in Britain despite challenges.
The British bank’s Business and Commercial Banking (BCB) unit, which serves firms with up to 100 million pounds in turnover, will have reached two thirds of the target by the end of this year, Nunn told analysts in a presentation.
That has come from cross-selling more products to customers and digitising services, BCB head Elyn Corfield said.
The business banking push forms part of a wider, previously announced ambition to deliver an additional 1.5 billion pounds in revenues per year from strategic initiatives, as Lloyds tries to insulate itself against the impact of falling interest rates.
Nunn said small and mid-sized companies had a significant role to play in spurring British economic growth, particularly as rates started to fall and investment picked up.
“The cost of borrowing will make a difference,” he said, noting rising confidence, especially in high-growth sectors.
Nunn earlier told Sky News that mortgage rates were falling and would likely settle in a range of 3.5%-4.5%, having been in the 1.5%-2.5% range for most of the last decade before central bank rate hikes sent home loan costs soaring above 5%.
The left-leaning Labour Party, widely predicted by polls to win Britain’s election on July 4, could lean on the banking sector to help out struggling mortgage holders, Reuters reported earlier this month.
($1 = 0.7903 pounds)
(Reporting by Lawrence White and Sinead Cruise; Editing by Alexander Smith)
