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Solace blog

16th December 2016

Engaging Communities through Digital Transformation

Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) is a UK-focused retail and commercial bank made up of four iconic relationship brands – Lloyds Bank, Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Scottish Widows. We have over 20 million customers and 75,000 colleagues. 12 million of our customers’ bank with us online, and 7 million bank with us on mobile; with our mobile channel seeing an astonishing 400% growth in 5 years. Today the proportion of customer needs met digitally by the Bank is over 60%, as we provide our customers with the opportunity to bank with us where they want to, when they
want to and how they want to.

Our vision is to help Britain to prosper

A key part of building trust in our Bank is doing business responsibly, which is core to our strategy. It is crucial to driving our colleagues’ pride in our business and to our purpose, which is to help people, businesses, and communities across Britain to prosper.

We launched our Helping Britain Prosper Plan in 2014. One of our key commitments in this plan is to unlock the power of digital for communities across the UK. In 2015-2017 Lloyds Banking Group is investing £1billion in digital transformation. Our organisation has changed, and continues to change significantly as we set ourselves the challenge of establishing a world-class digital bank, focusing on:

– Customer focused propositions

– Enhancing our digital capabilities and delivery

– Transforming our customer journeys end to end

Whilst improving our digital customer experience and transforming our internal digital capabilities entails enormous change; our digital transformation programme extends far beyond customers and colleagues to the entirety of the UK.

It is even clearer to us now than it was in 2014, that central to Helping Britain Prosper is to help Britain become more digitally capable.

Understanding the connection between financial and digital capability

In February 2016, we produced the first Lloyds Bank Consumer Digital Index to help understand the link between financial and digital capability. The Index comprises an in-depth study of the digital behaviour of one million UK consumers and the impact that using digital can have on people’s lives. Eight months later, in October this year, we produced the 3 annual Lloyds Bank Business Digital Index to understand and track the digital capability of small businesses and charities.

From the Consumer Index, we can see how having digital skills can provide tangible financial benefits of £744 a year for each individual or £3.7 billion in potential savings for the 3.2 million people in the UK who are currently digitally and financially excluded. The benefits of digital capability extend to businesses as well. The most digitally capable small businesses are twice as likely to report an increase in turnover as the least digitally capable. A prosperous Britain requires everyone to have access to these benefits, no matter what their circumstances may be.

We know from our work and the work of digital skills practitioners, that individuals benefit most from local face to face digital skills support. This information used in conjunction with our Indexes informs the basis of our digital community engagement. The challenge we have is ensuring we reach not only the active online population, but the 12.6 million individuals in the UK who lack Basic Digital Skills*, and the 5.9 million individuals who have never used the internet.

To reach this population, individuals must understand directly from others how their interest and passions can be unlocked using digital. The Group has taken a multifaceted approach to providing direct engagement.

In 2015, Lloyds Banking Group launched its Digital Champion Programme. This Programme saw the Group publicly pledge to recruit 20,000 Digital Champions by the end of next year, a target that has already been exceeded thanks to the dedication and enthusiasm from our colleagues. Each of these Digital Champions has pledged to support at least 2 individuals, businesses or charities to improve their digital skills every year. We now have over 23,000 Digital Champions working hard to provide support to those who need help to improve their digital capability. The 2016
Responsible Business awards saw LBG’s Digital Champion programme commended for its engagement efforts, a testament to the impact the Programme has made.

For small business owners and charities we have launched the Lloyds Bank Digital Know How, a free, online resource that guides users through essential digital skills and signposts to trusted sources for specialist knowledge. In 2016, LBG hosted 14 free half-day digital skills workshops across the UK. The Group convened sessions brought together industry experts to deliver digital skills training to over 1,300 individuals, businesses and charities.

For individuals, our work in partnership with Good Things Foundation has also enabled us to create three bespoke online consumer courses, which have been completed over 17,000 times. The courses focus on supporting key skills from mobile banking to keeping information safe online.

Moving forward into 2017, LBG will continue to work with practitioners to ensure it has trusted faces in local places.

As part of our Helping Britain Prosper Plan we will continue to support individuals, businesses and charities across the UK to unlock the benefits of digital and to Help Britain Prosper.
*Basic Digital Skills as outlined by Doteveryone framework.

By Nick Williams, Managing Director, Consumer Digital, Lloyds Banking Group