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Enterprise

Enterprise is the cornerstone of success and the lifeblood stimulating economic growth of the wider UK economy. As a purpose-led bank, we want to remove barriers to enterprise and champion anyone starting or growing a business. However, we know that, for many, this remains harder than it should be. 

 

We support enterprise through the non-financial support we provide, available to both customers and non-customers, covering UK businesses of all sizes and across all brands within NatWest Group. Our ambition is to help more people start, run and grow their own business than ever before, helping them achieve success, grow and contribute to a strong national economy.


For more details on our support for enterprise, see pages 18-20 in our 2023 Environmental, Social and Governance Disclosures Report (PDF 9MB)

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NatWest Group Accelerator Programme

In 2023, we supported over 1,300 entrepreneurs through the NatWest Accelerator Programme across our network of 13 hubs in the UK and online. From the businesses supported, 55% were female-led and 21% were ethnic minority-led businesses. During 2023, we continued to deliver our Accelerator Programme through in-person and virtual coaching sessions, workshops, thought leadership and events across the UK to enhance local and regional business ecosystems and networks. By offering access to expertise and a community of like-minded peers, the programme removes barriers to enterprise, empowering UK entrepreneurs to develop and grow their businesses. In addition, we continued our specialist Accelerators and events to support high-growth businesses in specific sectors across the UK. This included working with leading growth sector and industry partners such as BGF and Beauhurst.

Entrepreneur Hub

In August 2023, we launched Entrepreneur Hub: a single point of entry to our online enterprise support across our NatWest Group brands. The Entrepreneur Hub helps users to identify relevant education, tools and events as part of the wide range of non-financial support we offer based on users’ needs, interest or segment. Our Business Builder and Business Insight content continues to provide learning opportunities and thought leadership to support businesses at every stage. These tools offer a range of resources in one place and form part of our wider phased journey to personalise and simplify support for businesses. In 2023, we developed new modules aligned to the needs of businesses, focused on topics including cost of trading, financial resilience and marketing. We also integrated an optional registration process, giving users the option to tailor their learning resources.

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Championing inclusive entrepreneurship

Support for women in business

As longstanding supporters of women in business, we understand the challenges women may face when setting or scaling up a business. We have continued to support women in business in 2023 and aim to promote economic growth by supporting awareness and education around funding, investment and business growth, as well as fostering the right conditions and support for women starting and scaling up their businesses. Our women in business specialists and local enterprise managers help us to do this through targeted campaigns and collaborations with organisations like Digital Boost, BuyWomenBuilt, everywoman, Asian Women of Achievement, Investing in Women Code and Women Backing Women.

Our women in entrepreneurship training programme is accredited by the Chartered Banker Institute and has been designed to enhance colleagues’ knowledge in order to create awareness of the specific needs of the female entrepreneurs. We were proud to work with Savvitas to sponsor the annual MP HERoes event for the second year running. MP HERoes encourages, celebrates, and supports female enterprise by showcasing local role models in the form of ‘HERoes’, in constituencies across the UK. HERoes are nominated by their local MP.

Ethnic minority support

We aim to champion ethnic minority-led businesses (EMBs). We used feedback from our entrepreneur forum to inform our enterprise strategy. The forum is made up of EMBs from a variety of sectors, regions and backgrounds and was launched in February 2023. We have engaged with diverse communities from a variety of backgrounds through our range of national and regional ethnicity-focused enterprise events. We have a number of regional and national strategic partners who work with us to foster local networks of support. We aim for 20% of spaces on our enterprise and Accelerator Programmes to go to business owners from ethnic minority backgrounds. In 2023, 34% of support through our enterprise programmes was provided to EMBs.(*) In 2023, we’ve supported the Black British Initiative (BBI) MBA 30, a tailor-made programme addressing challenges faced by aspiring Black entrepreneurs designed by University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

 

(*) Within the scope of EY assurance. Refer to our External assurance webpage for details.