BCR Progress
Benefit-cost ratio update
COMMITMENT 1 – Expansion of SME lending: We will deliver an all new business credit card, with phased rollout through 2022 and delivery of all functionalities by Q1 2023, that will serve as a truly flexible SME credit and payments facility, driving increased choice and more competition in the market. Combining our unique lending expertise in corporate overdrafts and basic SME credit cards, accompanied with sustainable product economics, we will deliver a new business credit card with a range of valuable features and a market-beating 1% cashback (entirely funded by Zempler Bank). This product will be an industry-first, truly flexible credit and payment facility with integrations to Open Banking, Faster Payments and Direct Debit and will return up to £2m in cashback to small businesses by 2022. In conjunction with our Business Current account, this product will deliver £300m in spend and lending by the end of 2022, rising to £4bn to the end of 2025. We commit to acquiring 120K new customers by Q2 2023.
This commitment is on track.
Zempler Bank delivered its new business credit card in Q4 2021 and since has acquired over 160k new customers and enabled £1.7bn in spend and lending by the end of 2023. We remain confident that our business credit card in conjunction with our small business current account delivers value to our customers. In line with other awardees, we will continue to monitor deliverables through to the end of 2025 when we are anticipating that we will achieve £4bn of spend and lending.