NatWest announced this week it has beaten its sustainable energy funding target, providing £3.5 billion of lending to UK renewable energy and energy efficiency projects over the past three years. The bank reported it set a three-year target of £3 billion in 2015 and is now committed to funding £10 billion to the sustainable energy sector by 2020 to help accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy. Speaking about the milestone, Richard Saint, Managing Director of Energy Infrastructure & Industrials at NatWest, stated:
“This is a huge achievement, demonstrating our strong commitment to the low carbon economy and the jobs, businesses and communities that rely on it. It also highlights the attractiveness of the UK for investment in the low carbon goods and services sector for British businesses.”
The latest milestone comes less than a month after NatWest announced it is launching four specialist fintech accelerators based in its Bristol, Edinburgh, Londo, and Manchester hubs. According to NatWest, up to 80 fintech businesses will benefit from Dell EMC’s expertise through regular technology reviews and sales strategy analysis.
NatWest noted that The NatWest Entrepreneur Accelerator hubs are located in Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, and Newcastle. Hubs in Edinburgh and Glasgow will be Royal Bank of Scotland Entrepreneur Accelerators, while the Belfast hub will be known as the Ulster Bank Entrepreneur Accelerator. All support is provided to entrepreneurs fully funded with no strings attached.
NatWest also recently announced it has come to an agreement with Entrepreneurial Spark to transfer its network of 12 entrepreneur accelerator hubs to be 100% managed by the bank.