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Supporting business

How we're supporting businesses in the UK to grow and prosper.

English pub with customer talking to bar staff

As 2023 progressed, businesses continued to face into high inflation and increasing interest rates. Their focus on growth and their ability to innovate in a more challenging economic environment means that businesses remain able to survive and thrive.

Our role, as it was in prior years, has been to be by the side of our business customers to support their ambitions and to help them seize opportunities for growth wherever possible.

£7.9 billion

Green/ESG-related financing in 2023

600,000

 businesses received advice from us to help navigate a challenging economic environment

Despite a less benign economic environment, 2023 remained a year when many businesses were able to fulfil their growth ambitions. We helped over 105,000 small businesses and charities with new banking during the year and want to help these scale-up into larger businesses in the years ahead.

105,000

small businesses and charities helped with new banking in 2023

£30 billion

 in sustainable financing over the next three years

We are proud to be by the side of British business, supporting over 1 million UK businesses with leading digital and relationship banking services, as they start up, grow and thrive.

During 2023, we have continued to help finance critical infrastructure projects, which are key to the UK’s future prosperity and with many core to helping the UK reach its net zero target. Businesses had access to our regular economic updates and insight, helping them to understand changing business sentiment.

As we enter 2024, with inflation now at a much lower level than the year before, and with interest rate falls expected by the market during the year, we remain ready to support our clients, as they look to invest in their businesses and seize the opportunities for growth.

 

Download full factsheet

Our support across different sectors

Healthcare

The Healthcare sector has shown continued resilience and strength in 2023. We have seen continued growth in the GP sector with greater interest in new purpose-built premises and practice developments.

In 2023, we have supported the sector with £3.64 billion of funding, and around 6,300 sector-specific clients, an increase on 2022, and remain committed to support the sector in 2024.

Manufacturing

We have extended our £1 million-a-year sponsorship, taking our commitment to £15 million through to 2030, of the Lloyds Bank Advanced Manufacturing Training Centre at the Manufacturing Technology Centre in the Midlands. This will support the training and upskilling of graduates, apprentices and engineers in the sector, supporting the biggest issue manufacturers tell us they face into around skills shortages.

Through our sponsorship we have now supported the training and upskilling of more than 3,800 apprentices, graduates and engineers with more than 700 in 2023 alone. We remain on track to support more than 6,000 by 2030.

 

Infrastructure projects

In 2023, we supported more than 32 infrastructure initiatives across the UK, with a cumulative project value of more than £35 billion, including supporting the construction of the 882 MW Moray West Project, the first offshore wind farm in the UK to enter into corporate power purchase agreements for the sale of most of its generated power.

Once operational in 2025 it will deliver renewable electricity to 1.33 million UK homes.

Other notable renewables and core infrastructure projects supported in 2023 included Ventient Energy, one of the leading independent generators of renewable energy in Europe, and Statera Energy, involving the construction of one of the UK’s largest Battery Energy Storage Systems.

Black-led businesses

In 2023, we have engaged more than 5,000 Black entrepreneurs with over 23,000 hours of support through various events and initiatives, exceeding our 2022 performance. We have also had over 12,000 visits to our Black business hub with 42 events self-organised or sponsored through the year.

We continue to drive forward our multi-year commitment to support Black-owned businesses, keeping the recommendations from the Black. British. In Business & Proud report as the centre of all our actions.

These include partnering with Channel 4 to launch the ‘Black in Business’ initiative, expanding support across regions by engaging local change makers and ambassadors, and by supporting grassroot organisations and events like Birmingham Black Business Show and BOB Expo in Manchester and launching the year two of the immerse programme with Foundervine.

‘Black in Business’ initiative

Partnering with Channel 4, to launch the ‘Black in Business’ initiative which saw five businesses as beneficiaries of £100,000 worth of TV advertising each, their own TV commercial and senior executive sponsorship from Lloyds Banking Group and Channel 4 to support their intention to scale. Additionally, grant funding, promotional opportunities and bespoke consultancy have been offered to a cohort of five ‘Rising Stars.’

A mass outreach programme to nearly c600+ applicants who have opted in for further support has been initiated. A series of masterclasses to the 1,000+ businesses are also provided.

Sustainable businesses

Our Sustainability & ESG Financing team, created in 2021, is supporting our Corporate and Institutional clients with an increasing volume of Sustainability and ESG-linked loan transactions having contributed £7.9 billion of finance in 2023.

By the end of 2023, over 2,600 colleagues had completed the Sustainability Essentials Course accredited by Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL). We also collaborated with the University of Edinburgh and the University of Exeter Business School to develop bespoke training programmes for colleagues across a range of subjects including Net Zero technologies.

During 2023, we provided £1.4 billion in sustainable funding to the Social Housing sector, helping housing associations make their homes warmer and more energy efficient. We have achieved our £15 billion Corporate and Institutional sustainable financing commitment one year early and we’ve now committed an additional £30 billion in sustainable financing over the next three years .

We also launched a new report in partnership with British Chambers of Commerce, following an in-depth survey of over 1,000 UK businesses, 96% of which were SMEs. It reveals the challenges and opportunities facing SMEs on their journey to Net Zero and outlines recommendations for key stakeholders that have a role to play in supporting SMEs.

 

Housing

Through relationships with over 340 Housing Associations, we’ve provided over £17 billion in new financing to the social housing sector since 2018. During 2023, we have supported the delivery of £1.4 billion of new sustainable finance.

Our partnership with Regeneration Brainery encourages school leavers from underrepresented backgrounds into property, construction and regeneration. To date Regeneration Brainery has reached over 6,000 students and won “Social Impact Initiative of the Year” at both the RESI Awards and Property Week Awards during 2023.

Agriculture

Across our three brands, Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland & AMC we lent over £400 million to farming businesses in 2023.

And as part of our commitment to help British farmers accelerate their transition to Net Zero, we announced that Lloyds Bank will fund a three-year programme of bespoke on-farm consultancy for up to 1,000 British farms, working with Soil Association Exchange to help farmers build a roadmap to improve the ecological footprint and overall sustainability of their operations.

As part of that initiative, we have also agreed to be a part of the Sustainable Markets Initiative.

Education

In 2023, we have committed over £500 million of lending to Higher Education institutions, to meet their liquidity needs and support their capital development plans.

We’ve delivered interactive experiences to over 13,000 students directly, with a further 20,000 supported through our partnership with Skillsbuilder and the Accelerator programme.

We significantly expanded our partnerships in education to help young people under 19 develop the skills they and SME employers need to thrive in the world of work and worked with students aged 8-19 developing essential skills, experience of work, broadening understanding of apprenticeships through monthly Careers Live streams and employability craft.

Women Entrepreneurs

We are building on our Investing in Women Code commitments, by investing in initiatives that support growth, help to scale businesses, build regional ecosystem connections in societally important sectors, such as Manufacturing, and enabling better access to finance, networks and resources.

In September, we partnered with Female Founders Rise, a fast-growing community of over 2,500 female and non-binary founders based in the UK. They are an impact-led company focused on closing the gender gap by supporting women to build profitable and financially sustainable businesses with funding support, meet ups, community, resources, business fundamentals and raising awareness. We will further build out this partnership into 2024.

In addition, to support women in manufacturing, two roundtables with influential women across the industry in participation were held in 2023. It highlighted our core objectives of encouraging more women and girls into the sector, helping scale women-led manufacturing businesses, providing more role models and networking opportunities. We have also joined forces with the Women in Manufacturing Initiative.

Disabled Entrepreneurs

The ‘Disability & Entrepreneurship’ report in partnership with Small Business Britain (SBB) was launched in April 2023, following the public announcement of our disability representation goal.

The report highlights that 84% of disabled founders feel that they do not have equal access to the same opportunities and resources as non-disabled founders, and 60% did not get any support when starting their business; financially and non-financially.

As a follow up to the report, we hosted a roundtable in partnership with SBB at the House of Lords in September 2023 that brought together leaders from across business, policy and society, to spark debate and action on disability and entrepreneurship.

Archived factsheets
 

February 2023 factsheet
See how we supported businesses last year.

Business Banking Financial Assistance Team (BBFA)

We often hear that small businesses are the lifeblood of the UK economy, but the last few years have been the most traumatic that most of them will ever experience. 

Throughout the pandemic we played a central role in providing financial support through the UK Government schemes in order to tide small businesses over.

And now we’ve been considering how we can best help our customers to recover.

​​​​​​​To address these changing customer needs, we’ve formed a Business Banking Financial Assistance Team (BBFA). The team was set up initially to support business customers who were facing into the storm, and now it plays a crucial part in our role of supporting the UK's recovery.

Contact the BBFA team on 0800 302 9946

Business recovery hub

The Lloyds Bank business recovery hub provides information on improving your cash flow, what to do if your business is falling behind on payments, and making changes in your business.

Visit the hub

News and insight
 

The top challenges for UK SMEs in 2023

Paul Gordon, Group Managing Director, Relationship Management, on what he thinks will be the top challenges for businesses in 2023.

Read Paul's article Read Paul's article on the top challenges for UK SMEs in 2023 (opens in same tab).

Where are SMEs on their journeys to Net Zero?

Find out where SMEs are on their sustainability journeys, where they're looking for support, and what help and resources we have to offer.

Read the article Read the article about where SMEs are on their net zero journeys (opens in same tab).

How can apprenticeships benefit UK businesses?

Read about how apprentices have been helping to address the UK’s skills gap and to boost the economy.

Read the article Read the article on how apprenticeships can benefit UK businesses (opens in same tab).