Latest news with #PaulThwaite
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
NatWest CEO on Earnings, UK Defense Spending, Economy
Paul Thwaite, chief executive officer of NatWest, discusses the lender's second-quarter earnings as it raised its guidance for the year and announced a £750 million ($1 billion) share buyback. He also talks about the UK defense industry and the outlook for the economy. Thwaite speaks on Bloomberg Television. Sign in to access your portfolio
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
ALEX BRUMMER: Banks face a fintech coup
The long and winding road back for NatWest from oblivion to robust domestic lender is complete. Paul Thwaite, the bank's chief executive post state shareholding, can enjoy the new freedoms. He has made no secret of his ambition to build on NatWest's already powerful presence through acquisition. As a standalone franchise, NatWest can now say what it thinks again. We know what happened to Thwaite's predecessor Alison Rose when judged to have spoken out of turn about the banking relationship between NatWest's posh offshoot Coutts and Reform leader Nigel Farage. NatWest's chief and his opposite number at Lloyds Charlie Nunn speak as one. With bank profits soaring and some Government members and backbenchers eyeing up the finance and wealth as tax targets, they are concerned. One can see why Labour might regard NatWest's first half operating profits of £3.6billion, up from £3billion in the same period last year, as easy meat. If the bank can afford to buy back £1.5billion of its shares this year, recompense for taxpayers might seem in order. Indeed, the bank has increased its income guidance for the full year to £16.5billion from £16billion. Partly that reflects additional income from the Sainsbury's bank deal, as well as lower than expected bad loans. Good times do not last forever and a profitable bank, with healthy capital, ought to be good for UK growth. NatWest, Lloyds and the other banks have no room for complacency. A note from NatWest-RBS neighbours in Edinburgh, Scottish Mortgage, run by Baillie Gifford, extols fintech. It praises pioneers Stripe, Wise, NuBank, SEA, Revolut and others for building 'scale financial systems' and broadening access. Unless the incumbents can catch the digital train, High Street lenders could – like IBM – become sunset companies, as Microsoft, Nvidia et al sprint off with the prizes. Powell play After ugly scenes in the Oval Office in February, when Donald Trump berated Ukraine's President Zelensky, it might have been hoped self-restraint had been learned. Trump was at it again on Thursday. This time, the victim was Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell. Trump, as a real estate magnate, has an expertise in renovation, yet quite why he felt it necessary to don a hard hat and tour the repairs to the 90-year-old Fed headquarters is puzzling. As the two men toured, with Trump towering over the diminutive Powell, it was an obvious ambush. Trump magicked a piece of paper from his pocket and questioned alleged $3billion of costs and an overrun. The clash had little to do with concrete and plumbing, and everything to do with central bank independence. Trump is engaged in a crude campaign to bully Powell into cutting the key Fed funds rate from 4.25 per cent to 4.5 per cent to support output. The greater the pressure, the more likely it has been that Powell would hold the line. He has nothing to lose by being obdurate. His most notable legacy could be his bravery in standing up for the Fed. Fashion refit The controlling Lewis family is taking flack for playing hardball with River Island landlords and reshaping its retail portfolio. The objective is to keep the brand on the High Street in long-term ownership rather than condemn it to administration or rapacious private equity ownership. That rarely ends well.
Reuters
5 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
NatWest scales-up support for net-zero transition
LONDON, July 25 (Reuters) - British lender NatWest (NWG.L), opens new tab plans to double the amount of money it will dedicate to help clients meet decarbonisation and climate goals, saying on Friday that it recognised it needed to do more to support the energy transition. As well as setting a new target to provide 200 billion pounds ($268.70 billion) in transition and climate finance over the next five years, NatWest has expanded its climate-related financing programme to cover industries crucial to the energy transition like iron and steel and cement. "Supporting the real require vast investment not only in those industries delivering climate solutions, but across a broader spectrum of industries, including hard-to-abate and emission-intensive sectors," the bank said in a statement on its website. Banks globally are looking for ways to support clients from energy-intensive sectors in cutting carbon emissions while at the same time reducing their focus on pure-play climate initiatives. HSBC is the latest bank to leave the industry's climate coalition, following major U.S. lenders as some governments' net zero ambitions cool. NatWest CEO Paul Thwaite told journalists that the bank remains fully committed to the Net Zero Banking Alliance. Its strategy will now include activities like nuclear power generation and gas with carbon capture and storage, but it has dropped social financing. The bank reached 110 billion pounds of climate and sustainable finance in the second-quarter of this year, surpassing a 100 billion pound target, its head of climate change James Close said in a LinkedIn post on Friday. ($1 = 0.7443 pounds)
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
NatWest preps investor payouts as lender's profits soar
NatWest revealed fresh shareholder payouts on Friday after the lender's profits grew by almost a fifth in the first half as its takeover of Sainsbury's Bank boosted customer deposits. The FTSE 100 bank, which returned to full private ownership earlier this year, posted 18 per cent growth in operating pre-tax profits to £3.6billion for the first six months of the year, beating analysts' forecasts of £3.46billion. NatWest gained 1.1 million new customers over the period, both 'organically' and from acquiring Sainsbury's Bank in May. Customer deposits increased by £1.6billion to £319.9billion, including Sainsbury's Bank savings balances of £2.4billion and growth within NatWest's commercial and institutional business. This helped offset a sharp rise in impairment losses to £382million, up from £48million last year, primarily reflecting 'a small number of individual charges' in the commercial and institutional portfolio. The group faced a retail impairment loss of £219million, compared with £106million over the same period last year, which Natwest said 'was largely driven by the impact of balances acquired from Sainsbury's Bank'. However, overall operating expenses fell 1 per cent over the period to just over £4billion as NatWest said it was 'making good progress on becoming a simpler bank, delivering efficiencies from our investment programme'. NatWest said: 'We are digitising more customer journeys and deploying AI to improve our productivity and customer experience which is reflected in our improved NPS scores across all three businesses. 'We announced new collaborations with OpenAI, AWS and Accenture to accelerate our data simplification and enable greater personalisation for our customers.' Group operating costs, excluding litigation and conduct costs, are expected to be around £8.1billion for the full-year. NatWest announced a 9.5p interim dividend and a £750million share buyback. The lender also upgraded its key profit performance guidance for this year, saying it now expects to achieve a return on tangible equity of 16.5 per cent, from previous guidance of up to 16 per cent. Boss Paul Thwaite said: 'With positive momentum in our business, we are ambitious for the future and see clear opportunities for further disciplined growth. 'Having returned to full private ownership in Q2 2025, NatWest Group is well placed to step up and play its part in supporting economic growth across the UK and, in doing so, to create sustainable value for all our stakeholders.' NatWest's performance follows results from.
Finextra
7 days ago
- Business
- Finextra
NatWest hires AWS and Accenture to consolidate customer data across the bank
NatWest has signed a five-year deal with Amazon Web Services and Accenture to consolidate its customer data streams into a single, bank-wide data platform, enabled by AI. 0 The project will revamp the storage of data on 20 million customers across the bank to help anticipate and respond to customer needs faster with more personalised services. As a result, the bank's relationship managers will gain a deeper insight into customer financial wellness, equipping them with tools and analytics to provide recommendations, products and support that proactively meet their needs. The avilability of better quality data is also expected to aid faster onboarding, improve customer complaints handling, support security and protection measures by reducing the time it takes to alert customers of fraud risks and to provide more efficient and faster financial, risk and regulatory reporting through improved data sourcing. Paul Thwaite, CEO of NatWest Group, says: 'This collaboration with Accenture and AWS is key to helping us progress the transformation of NatWest as we become a simpler, more technology and data-driven bank. Our industry — and the expectations of our customers — are changing rapidly and we are building our capabilities in order to understand and serve their needs better and faster than ever before. Equipped with high quality data, we can continue to quietly revolutionise how we serve our customers through the use of AI and other technologies in order to provide more personalised products and services.'
