Good practice, social good and good
returns have gone hand-in-hand in 2021
Unity today is a thriving commercial bank serving firms and organisations that share its social and commercial values. Unity was founded by Trade Unions and the Co-operative Bank in 1984 to serve the common good and make sustainable returns. It became independent from the Co-operative Bank in 2015.
We should remind ourselves that less than a decade ago Unity was in a difficult situation. Since 2014 we – our shareholders and our employees – under the banner of ‘Safe Growth’ have built a robust, high-growth bank that is now one of the UK’s leading socially motivated, commercial banks.
2021 was not without its challenges with continued economic disruption and the pandemic. The historically low Bank Rate served to reduce banks’ returns generally. Despite all this, Unity’s after-tax earnings reached a record £9.7m (2020: £7.0m). The return on shareholders’ equity increased to 9.69% (2020: 8.00%) and Unity ended 2021 with a strong capital base, by the Bank of England’s CET1 measure, of over 17%. Money deposited with us increased to £1,507m (2020: £1,336m), a record for Unity Trust Bank.
These strong results demonstrate the resilience of Unity’s financial performance, but there was disruption to customer service, particularly telephone support. The reasons for this are not unusual during this time of economic disruption and the pandemic, but we set ourselves higher standards. We thank our customers for their patience and loyalty, something we never take for granted. We have increased our staffing and resilience and this additional resource has started to take effect.
In 2021 we continued our positive contribution to the communities we serve and achieved net zero carbon accreditation. The social impact metrics for the year can be found in the Highlights section in our 2021 Impact Report.
£723.5m (2020: £601.8m)
Record £11.1m (2020: £7.5m)
NACFB Patron Awards