Working together with fintech SMEs

“We started our Launch Innovation Programme alongside Fintech Scotland to work in partnership with, and learn from, some of the best fintech SMEs in the country.”

What is the Launch Innovation Programme?

Right now collaboration with fintechs is particularly important to us – especially those who can help us transform our Retail, Commercial and Insurance areas.¹

Our Launch Innovation Programme gives ambitious companies and individuals the opportunity to run Proof of Concepts (PoC) with us, whereby a pilot project is created to demonstrate whether the idea can be carried out. This approach lets us onboard fintechs quickly and is the fastest way for us to innovate at pace. 

Over a 10-week period those fintechs will get to test and refine their ideas, access support, clinics and twelve business masterclasses, plus pitch their proposals to our Challenge Sponsors who spearhead our various Business and Change units.

The reasons for creating the Launch Innovation Programme were simple: to showcase our commitment to the Fintech Delivery Pledge, and onboard and carry out experiments from third parties who, in turn, can help us find new ways of thinking about innovation.

Moreover, we also wanted to raise awareness across the Group and encourage our colleagues to challenge the status-quo. Most importantly, though, the Launch Innovation Programme has demonstrated that we can onboard fintechs at scale and at speed.

In fact, during the first 12 weeks of our first programme, we onboarded 12 companies. And this time around, we onboarded 16 companies in just 10 weeks. This has ensured a strong pipeline of experiments over the last two years or so.

Do you have an interesting idea or proposition you’d like to talk to our Fintech Investment Team about? Contact the team. 

How does the Launch Innovation Programme contribute to our wider fintech plans?

Put simply, the Launch Innovation Programme showcases the capabilities of those fintechs internally, and to the wider market. In turn, this helps us to disrupt our current ways of working and reinforce our position as a cultivator of talent.

Crucially, the learnings from the networks we build also feed into the activities of teams across the Group. From partnerships to investment, the fintechs we work with allow us to have an up-to-date and managed voice in these spaces.

Through the power and innovation of those fintechs, we have also recognised opportunities to help further our purpose of helping Britain prosper. For example, we recently worked with My Carbon Manager to help our home insurance customers reduce their carbon footprint.

What is My Carbon Manager?

Many consumers aren’t aware just how important home improvements can be to help tackle climate change. In fact, at the time of writing, around one fifth of the UK’s carbon emissions come from our homes.

So with the Group’s commitment to helping Britain achieve net zero in mind, the opportunity to help customers save money, plus reduce their carbon footprints with My Carbon Manager was simply too good to pass up. My Carbon Manager ticked all the boxes. The tool enabled us to gage whether customers would be interested in learning more about carbon emissions at the point of a home insurance claim.

Impressively, My Carbon Manager goes further than other carbon footprint tools by suggesting practical ways consumers can reduce their carbon footprint. As a result of the tool going live last year, we were able to use the insights gained to continue to develop home insurance products that align with our sustainability goals.

“My Carbon Manager goes further than other carbon footprint tools by also suggesting practical ways consumers can reduce their carbon footprint.”

Our Launch Innovation Programme 2022

Our most recent Launch Innovation Programme will focus on the key challenges for the Group, with the goal of helping Britain prosper in mind.

For example, right now sustainability is integral to everything we do. To that end, we are acting across the Group to offer more green products and sustainable investment choices that can help our customers reduce their carbon footprints.

It’s also vital that we support our colleagues in the best way we can, too, by supplying them with the technology they need to facilitate new ways of working. Indeed, we strongly believe that fintechs and the tools they offer will help us give our colleagues the best help and development as we come out of the pandemic.

We also recognise that our customers must be able to interact with us in ways that suit them best – whether from the comfort of their own homes or meeting our colleagues face-to-face at one of our branches. To that end, a combination of excellent one-on-one customer service, plus the best digital support will help us solve a host of customer problems more efficiently.

Fintech at Lloyds Banking Group

Fintech is important because it encourages traditional financial institutions to develop new and innovative ways of creating products and services. It’s for this reason that, at Lloyds Banking Group, we believe the importance of fintechs in delivering better outcomes for our customers cannot be understated.

After all, we are the UKs biggest digital bank – with over 18 million online customers². It’s for this reason that we are an active member of the Fintech Delivery Panel and have signed the Fintech Delivery Pledge, which ratifies our commitment to fintech firms.

We remain absolutely committed to making it as easy as possible for fintechs to collaborate with us to create better products, plus give our customers positive outcomes and experiences. 

References

1 Collaborating with fintechs - Lloyds Banking Group

2 Tech and transformation - Lloyds Banking Group