We have
63%(*)
of our active current customers exclusively banking with us using digital channels, through mobile and online.
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Innovation and digitisation
Through our investment in data, technology, and digitisation we’re able to deliver a better service to our customers, offering more relevant products, more quickly and at the right time.
(*) Within the scope of EY assurance. Refer to page 70 of 2022 ESG Supplement (PDF 9.6MB)
Embedding our services in our customers’ digital lives
Our retail mobile app enables our customers to bank whenever, wherever, with 8.9m(*) of our customers mobile users. We have 3.8m(*) customers using the online banking platform and 10.1m(*) digitally active retail and business banking customers.
Product innovation for our commercial customers
With a strong track record on innovation, backed by a large and mature ecosystem, and through collaborations with experienced and innovative companies, we have driven significant benefits for our customers. For example, Tyl allows merchants to take payments anytime, anywhere with next day settlements as standard – improving the customer’s funding position - and through the integration of Tyl with other innovations like Payit and Mettle, we will offer a One Bank SME and payments proposition.
Consumer protection
Criminals are using the circumstances of the ongoing cost of living crisis to exploit more UK customers through fraud and scams. Keeping our customers safe and secure is of paramount importance to us. Key highlights of activity during 2022 were:
Retail customer insights
We now have over 80 different insight messages which we share with customers to help them save time and money, and give them financial peace of mind. Customers are sent spending analysis insights, such as their most frequent spending category and merchant, to better understand how they’re spending their money.
We’re also prompting customers on the anniversary of utility, broadband, phone and car insurance bills to remind them their deal may be coming to an end. One of the personalised messages we send to customers is to remind them about their media subscriptions and on average customers saved £132 by either switching or stopping their subscription.
Open Banking and APIs
Our API platform is recognised by external parties and the CMA as being in a leading position on performance, uptime and consumption. To date, over 3.2 million customers have used our APIs to access their account information and 1.8 million customers have used our APIs to make a payment – initiating transactions worth over £7.8 billion.
Payit™ accepted its first live Variable Recurring Payment (VRP), a new alternative digital payment option, making NatWest the first UK bank to successfully make a VRP using a bank-owned payment proposition.
Carbon Tracking Tooling & Functionality
In Q3 2022, we launched the NatWest Group Carbon Planner, a free-to-use digital platform designed to help UK businesses identify potential cost and carbon savings. Carbon Planner surfaces personalised recommendations from more than 40 actions, across nine areas, which UK businesses can take to reduce their carbon footprint and potentially operating costs. Actions include improving insulation, introducing a packaging return programme, electric vehicle adoption and generating energy from waste.
We also released a number of enhancements to our carbon tracking tool for personal customers, developed in collaboration with Cogo, to allow customers to see a rolling monthly view of their carbon footprint and commit to quantifiable actions which give them personalised carbon savings. As at 31 December 2022, more than 330,000 customers had accessed carbon tracking features on the Retail app.
Debit Card PIN Reveal
In Q4 2022, we launched PIN reveal through our app for debit and credit card customers, which will reduce the number of paper-based PINs we issue.
Our use of artificial intelligence
Our artificial intelligence (AI) virtual assistant Cora continues to learn and evolve, using intelligent automation to provide support to our customers 24/7. Cora has been integrated with our telephony system, and can now help customers to change their address, update their phone number or email, understand pending transactions and find out how to open a new account. In 2022, Cora handled 10.4(*) million retail banking conversations.
(*) Within the scope of EY assurance. Refer to page 70 of the 2022 ESG Supplement (PDF 9.6MB).
Information security and system availability
In 2022, we had consistently high performance and stability of our most critical systems, which were available 99.97% of the time. The same timeframe has seen two Criticality 1 incidents compared with nine for 20211,2. These numbers include all events which had an impact on our operations, not just system issues.
(1) By way of illustration, a Criticality 1 incident could be a loss of key IT systems resulting in an impact to more than 15% of the bank’s customers or an incident that leads to a financial loss of over £10M.
(2) Availability of our key systems is currently calculated against what we call our ‘Tier 1 systems’ – those defined as the most critical.
Please see page 39 of our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Supplement (PDF 9.6MB) for more details.
Read more about how we aim to make our banking more accessible for all our customers.
Read more about how we are committed to ensuring we empower customers to detect and prevent fraud and scams at first point of contact.
Read more about how we support customers who find themselves either in a vulnerable situation or caring for a loved one experiencing a vulnerability.