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Our story and partnerships

First published in 2014, the Lloyds Bank annual insight reports are the largest measure of digital capability for small businesses and charities in the UK - and the only measure of their kind.

Why are Lloyds Bank producing these reports?

The core purpose of Lloyds Banking Group is to Help Britain Prosper. Since 2014, a core focus of this purpose is helping the UK’s small businesses to grow their productivity, financial resilience and digital skills.

Across the last seven years, this report has been produced to act as the UK’s largest benchmark of small business digitisation. The unique blend of transactional, behavioural data and telephone survey interviews helps to profile not just what small businesses are doing online, but also how they are thinking and feeling about the digital economy. In 2021, the behavioural data of over 250,000 UK organisations now contributes to the digital Index segmentation, and this year 2,000 small businesses were interviewed via telephone.

This data and insight:

Is used by UK government to inform public policy, and shape the UK’s Digital Strategy
Underpins the UK government’s Digital Skills Partnership for over 200 cross-sector partners and the Essential Digital Skills framework supporting every adult within the UK
Helps business partners and peers to evolve their own customer propositions, products and inclusion strategies, as well as make the case for change within their own organisations
Supports small businesses as they decide how and where to place their focus and investments
Helps Local Enterprise Partnerships and local authorities to identify and develop impactful digital skills programmes for their area
And, complements the Future Dot Now coalition, so that people and businesses can make the most of their digital skills.

What are Lloyds Bank doing to support small businesses?

Across 2021 – 2022, Lloyds Bank were committed to helping over 185,000 small businesses with their productivity, financial resilience and digital skills
The Lloyds Bank Academy provides free training and expert support to anyone, anywhere, not just our customers.
Through our Digital Champions and colleague volunteering schemes, our talented colleagues give their time and expertise to small businesses across the UK.
This goes, above and beyond, our core business support and advisory services.

Thanks to our partners

Across the last seven years, the Lloyds Bank team have collaborated with local authorities, regional and national Governments, industry leaders, think-tanks, business networks and trade bodies to help small businesses with tech adoption and digital enablement. We are hugely grateful to them for collaborating on this agenda, and to the small business themselves who each year give us their time and honesty, to help us better understand them.