UK Banking is a core business, and its success will always be very important to Barclays. If we are to achieve our ambitions, then UK Banking must perform well. We made good progress in UK Banking in 2005, and each of its businesses, UK Retail Banking and UK Business Banking, achieved encouraging profit growth. We have publicly committed to improve the productivity of UK Banking by 2% in each of 2005, 2006 and 2007, and we outperformed that goal last year.
In UK Retail Banking, our recruitment of customers was good in 2005 – 400,000 new current account holders, 250,000 new savings customers, over 500,000 new registrants for online banking, and 140,000 new customers of our Additions account. We also saw new flows of customers into both Premier and Small Business. The business is not yet performing as strongly as we intend and we know that UK Retail Banking presents us with a significant growth opportunity. We have identified opportunities for improvement and have directed resources towards these.
UK Business Banking, the second component of our UK Banking business, is the biggest profit contributor in Barclays. It performed well in 2005. As well as being a substantial source of profit in its own right, it is a business rich with opportunity to create synergies – with Barclays Capital, with Wealth Management and with UK Retail Banking. Its business model is based on relationship management and industry expertise – our relationship teams are divided into sector specialists – and it's a formula that is both distinctive and well proven.
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