NatWest : Download PDF file of Archived presentations 2021 21 May Commercial Banking and NWM Investor Spotlight Live Event transcript

Commercial Banking and NWM Investor Spotlight Live Event

21st May 2021

Audio Transcript

This transcript includes certain statements regarding our assumptions, projections, expectations, intentions or beliefs about future events. These statements constitute "forward-looking statements" for purposes of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We caution that these statements may and often do vary materially from actual results. Accordingly, we cannot assure you that actual results will not differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. You should read the section entitled "Forward-Looking Statements" in our H1 Results announcement published on 31st July 2020

Paul Thwaite (PT)

0:00:04.0

Thank you Dave, good afternoon everyone, and thank you for joining today's Commercial Bank and Natwest Markets Investor Spotlight. My name is Paul Thwaite, I'm the CEO of the Commercial Bank. I know many of you will have joined the Meet the EXCO introductory event in March. The session today will provide a deeper insight into how we are driving towards sustainable returns in both our commercial banking and Natwest Markets businesses.

0:00:30.1

Later in the year, we'll be holding a similar event focused on our Retail and Private businesses. Today, in addition to myself, and Robert, CEO of Natwest Markets, Simon McNamara our CAO, will highlight some of the key technologies and innovation being provided to our franchises and Jen Tippin our Chief Transformation Officer, will give an overview of how the transformation program is helping us to deliver on our strategic priorities.

0:00:56.1

As Dave mentioned, at the end of the presentation, there will be an opportunity for Q&A and I'm pleased to say we will be joined by our Business CFO's Peter Norton for Commercial Banking and David King for Natwest Markets.

0:01:08.7

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First and briefly, I'd like to recap on the 4 strategic priorities that Alison set out in February 2020 to drive sustainable returns. These very much underpin our purpose and our strategy and we believe are critical to building trust and creating long term value for all of our stakeholders.

0:01:27.5

The 4 pillars of supporting customers, powering growth through innovation and partnerships, simplifying our business and sharpening our capital allocation.

Over the last year and through the COVID-19 pandemic we truly believe our purpose and our strategy has been tested and proven as we have pivoted the business to support individuals, families and businesses in many new ways both at scale and at pace, whilst continuing the digital transformation of our business.

0:01:58.6

Framing commercial banking and Natwest Markets, together these businesses account for about 50% of Natwest Group income and costs and about 60% of risk weighted assets, making the successful execution of our strategy a key element in the delivery of the groups 2023 targets.

In the next 15 minutes or so, I will take you through how we are delivering on our priorities, within commercial banking, by covering an overview of the business and the financial performance across the different customer segments, our customers focused strategy, our ongoing collaboration with Natwest Markets and our expected financial outlook.

0:02:38.5

So, starting with an overview of commercial banking. We are the largest supporter of UK businesses, we serve in excess of 1 million customers across the UK, or put another way, 1 in 4 of every business.

We offer a comprehensive range of the products and propositions across our 3 main customer segments of business banking, SME and mid-corporates and large corporates and institutions.

0:03:03.0

These customer segments are complimented by our specialised product business including Lombard, our asset finance business, Invoice finance and Mentor. Our broad regional and local RM presence, our comprehensive product range and deep-set expertise allows us to competitively meet a wide range of our customers needs ensuring we keep pace with an ever-changing market landscape.

0:03:29.3

We start with a position of strength and leadership across our primary segments, both in terms of market share and customer satisfaction.

Whilst there are consistent themes and needs across our customer base, the returns dynamic varies across different segments and external and internal drivers impact the profitability of the businesses in slightly different ways.

0:03:52.1

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It should be noted that 2020 returns were lower due to the supressed income we saw, during lockdown as well as the impact of procyclicality and a flat yield curve.

We see upsides with the reversal of these impacts and in businesses where we hold significant operational deposits, we are highly levered to positive changes in the yield curve.

0:04:13.0

Taking each of the segments in turn. Business banking is focused on our smallest customers and we support circa 20% of businesses of this size in the UK. Our net promoter score and CMA rankings in this segment continue to carry strong momentum and our priority is to continue to automate and digitise our offering.

0:04:33.3

Supported by a direct relationship manager model with video banking capabilities for those key moments of truth.

Traditionally, business banking has been a high margin business with attractive returns and a source of high-quality deposits with a loan to deposit ratio of below 50%.

During 2020 we saw some significant changes in the shape of this business as the loan book nearly doubled in size, primarily on the bank of bounce back loans and deposits increased by 25%.

0:05:03.7

Whilst relatively simple, this business has the greatest scope to be digitised and it's capital liquidity and return dynamics are in many respects more akin to a retail portfolio.

Our SME and corporate businesses comprise of regionally and sectorially diverse customers with more complex needs and typically better credit ratings.

0:05:23.9

These customers are served by our relationship managers, supplemented as required by specialist product teams and have increasingly have had a growing demand for digital journeys and video banking. In the current interest rate environments, significant deposit and flows, combined with competitive asset pricing has weighed on the returns.

We plan to increase profitability in this segment, as we evolve the relationship model in an increasingly digital world and meet more of these customers' needs by transaction banking, our ventures and our Natwest Markets capabilities.

0:05:57.2

We also include here our real estate business, which reflects where the majority of this book sits and aligns with how we manage the business on a day-to-day basis. Real estate remains important to us, has been discussed at length historically and has been for a number of years, run with a very cautious risk appetite.

0:06:13.6

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Our large corporate and institutions business have a leading market share and is focused on our largest multinational clients and our most complex and sponsor owned businesses.

We are primarily focused on customers with a UK nexus and over the years have developed strong leading positions in a key number of specialist areas, such as asset finance, infrastructure, product finance and renewables.

0:06:37.6

To ensure we deliver all of the bank's capabilities to this customer set, we have implemented new ways of collaborating with Natwest Markets, an example of which is the alignment of our customer facing teams in a One Relationship manager model which simplifies the way we serve our customers.

Large corporate institutions are also a deposit heavy business and returns being impacted by the compression of the yield curve.

0:07:02.7

Finally, we have our specialised product businesses, Lombard, invoice finance and Mentor, all of which individually add market leading positions, and are currently integrated with the 3 core customer businesses I just talked through.

Separately we disclose other, which accounts for about £10Bn of risk weighted assets, which includes £4Bn of EU divestment, which will soon be reintegrated into the core business, given the upcoming conclusion of our state A commitments, a legacy assets portfolio of around £1Bn and a centrally held treasury risk portfolio of £5Bn.

0:07:39.6

Moving from the segments to our strategy, our strategic priorities for the business align to both value and market opportunity and apply across all of the business segments.

Firstly, supporting our customers through the economic recovery, Brexit and our transition to a Net Zero economy. Secondly, driving quality income growth which we're doing through lending and our partnership with Natwest Markets and through growing our fee income base through payments and transaction banking.

0:08:10.8

Thirdly, driving efficiency through digitisation, simplification, and automation by transforming our key processes of our key customer journeys.

And finally, but not least, sharpening our capital allocation across the book.

I'll now take each one and go into a little bit more detail on each.

0:08:28.7

Starting with our first priority, the ongoing support we are providing to our customers. This remains at the highest importance; we are now shifting our focus from helping customers through the disruption caused by COVID-19 to supporting them in recovery.

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Over the course of the pandemic, we delivered circa 20% of all government scheme lending and earlier this year successfully launched the recovery loan scheme and Pay as you Go, a fully digital end to end journey that supports customers with the repayments of their bounce back loans.

0:09:00.1

And aligned with our purpose, we continue to remove barriers to enterprise on our recent work with the government, on the SME task force, including a commitment of £6Bn of funding, demonstrates our focus on improving SME productivity and championing the recovery in the UK.

At the same time, we recognise the important role we have to play in supporting the UK transition to Net Zero and whilst this applies across all segments, we see particular opportunity in the near term with our largest customers.

0:09:30.0

An excellent example of this opportunity is how it plays to our strengths is the role we played in financing Dogger Bank wind farm. Our project finance business in partnership with Natwest Markets collaborated to deliver a complex, multi product financing solution, to form the world's biggest offshore wind farm and Robert will talk more to these opportunities later.

0:09:52.3

Our second priority is to deliver targeted growth. To achieve this, we will support and meet a much broader range of our customers needs, delivering growth both in lending but also in fee income.

Net fee and commissioning fell sharply last year as the UK went into lockdown, and ended the year around £200Mn lower than in 2019, but as customer activity levels have started to return, we have already started to see some recovery in these lines.

0:10:19.8

We expect the migration to digital from lower levels of cash usage to remain and our strategy is supported by investments that position us well both to benefit from the recovery but also the structural shifts in payments.

We expect to grow our fee and commissioning income in a number of ways, firstly by meeting more customer needs in working capital and trade finance, secondly by continuing to invest in growth payments through our core products and in ventures such as Tyl on re-entry into the merchants inquiring market and Pay It, our own banking payment platform.

0:10:53.5

Both of which we have seen significant volume growth and continued opportunity.

And thirdly, by continuing to deepen relationships across our customer base, by meeting more needs of Natwest Markets capabilities, and creating both share and penetration across key products such as FX and rates.

0:11:13.3

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