Ms Francesca McDonagh:

Customer focus is one of our four key values. We set our values at the end of 2017 and have gone through a very detailed programme of embedding what those behaviours are and what our culture means. We want to see it as a differentiator for our customers and our employees but also for our shareholders, because a good culture ultimately results in more sustainable results.

We define customer focus as increasing the volume of the customer's voice and listening more. There are many examples of us having listened and we have put more colleagues back onto the front line to serve customers. We have put cash services back into branches and we have put a welcome adviser in each branch, specifically in response to customer feedback. We also define customer focus as achieving minimum standards and service levels. We have improved our journeys and contact centre service levels and there has been an extensive programme of process improvement. There is more to do but we have raised our minimum standard. Finally, we define customer focus as offering tangibly different customer propositions such as financial well-being, protection and insurance and fixed-rate mortgage offerings. I do not see it as being either customer-focused or shareholder-focused as we see a good, engaged satisfied customer as good for business. Being customer-focused does not mean we will always have the cheapest lending in the market. We look at an overall proposition and its sustainability and we believe we are offering very good value in our mortgages and personal lending offers, as well as in the broader relationship. We have more to do to improve customer satisfaction and focus but we have made tangible improvements in front-line branch and contact centre service levels since the last time I appeared before this committee.