Our strategy
Our strategy is focused on customer loyalty, improved efficiency and sustainable growth. Our key strategic priorities are set out below.
Customer centric & customer activity
Initiatives focused to better serve and engage our customers by leveraging technological and operations synergies from the global Banco Santander group, enabling access to financial services for our customers through several channels.
Simplification, automation & digitalisation
We aim to reduce complexity, decrease friction and increase automation to streamline our products and processes. This is supported by becoming a ‘digital bank with a human touch’.
Value creation & disciplined capital allocation
Focus on value creation for all (customers, employees, shareholders and communities) while managing risk and profitability and being disciplined with capital allocation.
Sustainability & responsible banking
Initiatives aimed at helping our customers with their net zero transition and to help grow the number of people with the skills they need to thrive in the future. To find out more, see below or our sustainability centre.
Sustainability & responsible banking (detail)
Financial institutions have a critical role to play in addressing sector-specific issues such as financial inclusion and financial crime. They also have a role to play in tackling broader societal challenges such as climate change.
Our Sustainability and Responsible Banking (SRB) strategy aligns to Banco Santander’s and sets out Santander UK’s approach to tackling key sustainability challenges, identified by our materiality assessment, while also supporting our core purpose to help people and businesses prosper. The SRB strategy embeds Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations into our business and culture. More information on each of these pillars is shown below.
Environment
At Santander UK, we recognise that climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our times. Through our updated climate change strategy, our goal is to support the UK in tackling climate change. We’ll do this through a four-pronged approach by:
– Decarbonising our portfolios in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement;
– Supporting our customers in the green transition;
– Reducing our own environmental impact; and
– Embedding climate in risk management
We’re also fully committed to Banco Santander’s ambition to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Social
Our social agenda focuses on our customers, our communities, and our people. Education, employability, and entrepreneurship alongside financial inclusion, financial health, social mobility, and diversity and inclusion are essential to build our social impact ambitions. We are currently developing a new social strategy, which will launch in 2024. This brings together all of our initiatives that are designed to generate positive impact for our customers (with a particular focus on Consumer Duty), our communities, and our people.
As part of our community engagement, we also focus on empowering students through our Santander Universities Programme, volunteering opportunities for our people, our charity partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support, and the Santander Foundation.
Governance
Robust governance ensures we get the basics right. High standards of ethics, conduct, and integrity sit at the foundation of all prosperous and equitable businesses and societies. They are also a clear priority in how customers choose their bank. Our commitment is to be a fair, transparent, and responsible bank. At the heart of this is good customer outcomes and fair value. We deal with any form of fraud against our customers or other economic crime as a priority. We uphold the highest standards of governance, including applying the UK Corporate Governance Code.
Our Code of Conduct (723 KB) contributes to our culture. It sets out how we should act and behave.