Perigon Banking Barometer 2025

Our 2025 Banking Barometer is live - our third comprehensive benchmark of UK banks, building societies and fintechs. This year is bigger and more useful for three reasons:

1. We’ve gone beyond ESG to include broader business strategy and AI maturity.
2. We’ve built an interactive webapp so you can slice and dice the data, not just read it.
3. The analytical engine was supercharged by a summer intern who brought rigorous statistical modelling, fresh perspective and serious technical nous (you’ll feel it in the charts).

—> Explore the Barometer

Why this matters (now)

Leaders are being pulled in multiple directions, not least tightening sustainability expectations and the AI wave.  Articulating clear strategic priorities that withstand scrutiny can help navigate the noise; failure to do so can add to the drag. Our Barometer distils how 57 UK institutions (from local building societies to global banks) are actually responding, based on what they disclose in their annual reports.

At a glance

• Regulation continues to drive up sustainability disclosure page count but underlying approaches are also maturing.
• Financed emissions reporting is rising, and firms would be wise to keep an eye on business travel emissions intensity which is creeping upwards.
• We’re seeing more - and more credible - targets are growing, especially interim milestones (fintechs have made a big push here).
• Strategy articulation is uneven: big banks look polished; fintechs punchy; building societies risk losing ground.
• AI is a big divider: lots of noise from some, nothing from others, and evidence of a strategic approach evident in only for a few.

1. General ESG: more pages, more substance

The average sustainability section in annual reports is now 21 pages (up from 16). Much of the uplift comes from CSRD-driven reporting by Irish banks in the cohort - an early signal for UK institutions preparing for UK Sustainability Reporting Standards. Transition plans are moving mainstream: 90% of full-service banks now have climate transition plans (and 33% of challengers/specialists). Nature-related investment activity is quietly ticking up - banks are just getting on with it without a major regulatory push or song and dance - while use of carbon credits to offset emissions is declining.

2. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: financed emissions in focus, travel creeps up

49% of banks now report financed emissions, up 12 percentage points year-on-year (seven new reporters in FY24). Scope 1 and 2 emissions continue to fall (as expected from estate and fleet decarbonisation). The surprise riser: business travel emissions intensity, particularly among fintechs.

3. Climate Targets: steadier, more credible, more near-term

Climate targets are becoming more common and clearer. 65% of banks now have Net Zero targets (vs 34% last year), increasingly standardised to 2050. The real quality shift is in interim targets - especially among fintechs, signalling operational maturity and, we suspect, pre-IPO discipline.

As banks prepare for the FY25 reporting season, three principles are important to remember:

1. Proportionality: tailor your climate ambition to your business model and impact
2. Pragmatism: it’s been a steep learning curve and we’re not at the top…if you need to change approach as you understand more or the external environment changes, then do
3. Openness: if you do change approach (particularly if you retire targets), do so transparently and explain why - not only does it build stakeholder confidence, it’ll help others learn faster

4. Business Strategy: parallel strategies may cause drag

Many banks articulate a focused set strategic priorities; weaknesses include vague timelines andparallel, unintegrated strategies (e.g. sustainability or technology). Larger banks generally score higher on our strategy communication framework - greater in-house capacity and consulting spend likely help. Controlling for size, fintechs outperform on clarity and ambition while building societies tend to underperform.

And because life is too short to be serious all the time, we’ve mapped the different strategy profiles to a set of familiar car archetypes. Are you a Vauxhall Astra or a Reliant Robin of strategy - check our webapp to see which best describes your approach to strategy.

5. AI Maturity: the big divide

One in four banks made no mention of AI in their FY24 annual reports. And 84% showed no evidence of strategic thinking about AI beyond narrow cost efficiency. That’s a risk. We view AI as a general-purpose technology that will reshape customer experience, risk, operations and growth models. While lots can change in a few months and these disclosures were backwards-looking, we had expected more commentary about strategic AI capability building (talent, data foundations, governance, model risk) vs a few side notes about customer service chat bots.

How to use the Barometer

We spend the (significant) time and effort on the Banking Barometer each year to help you pressure-test your plans and your approach to disclosures. Use it to benchmark where you’re ahead, where there are gaps to close in year and where you might focus future efforts. We are always happy to discuss the findings and welcome any challenge.

• Read our insights pages to learn more about leaders, laggards, trends and tips.
• Manipulate the charts to test assumptions and sensitivity (thanks to our webapp, you can).
• Open the Data Explorer to build your own custom views and analysis.
• Get in touch to discuss it further or request an (automatic) copy of our database.

Method and caveats

• Sample: 57 UK institutions across full-service, challenger/specialist, building societies, fintechs.
• Source base: public annual reports (FY24) and related disclosures - if bank’s year end wasn’t December 2024, the most recent available published annual report as at July 2025 was used.
• Dimensions: Sustainability (incl. financed emissions), Climate targets, Strategy communication, AI maturity.
• Approach: structured extraction + qualitative analysis + comparative scoring. Custom AI agents used wherever practical for extraction, analysis and scoring - always with human-in-the-loop to minimise errors.
• Caveats: errors in the data may exist - either from our AI bots or from good old fashioned human error.

TL;DR: Perigon’s 2025 Banking Barometer is live, providing an interactive benchmark on UK banks’ approaches to sustainability, strategy and AI. Disclosures are maturing, the AI divide is widening, and strategy clarity is mixed. Explore the UK financial services industry and where your bank stands.

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