Accessible finance commitment

The Group is committed to making finance accessible to people who may not meet the traditional criteria of mainstream lenders. Through our family of specialist brands, we provide tailored mortgage and savings solutions that support a broad range of customer needs from first time buyers and shared ownership applicants to individuals with complex or non standard income profiles. This reflects our purpose of helping customers and communities prosper and addressing structural gaps within the UK housing market.

We recognise that many customers face affordability pressures, irregular income patterns or other barriers that make obtaining financial products more challenging. In response, we offer flexible lending options including higher LTV mortgages, enhanced income multiples, varied loan sizes and longer term product choices to create realistic pathways to home ownership and financial stability. These specialist solutions are designed to support customers navigating high rental environments, rising living costs or limited deposit availability, helping them take confident steps towards their goals.

Where appropriate and in line with responsible lending practices, we also support customers in consolidating unsecured debt into a single, more manageable payment. This approach helps households regain financial control and reinforces our commitment to delivering fair, transparent and supportive outcomes. Across the Group, we embed fairness, inclusion and responsible decision making into everything we do, ensuring our services remain accessible and responsive to the needs of the communities we serve.

Awards & recognition

Our dedicated Client Management Team provides customers with specialised services. In recognition of our commitment to service excellence, the Group won, among many other industry awards, the Mortgage Strategy Award for Best Specialist Lender, Best Buy-to-Let Lender and Best Short Term Lender. To deepen our understanding of our customers and the factors that shape their needs, we have undertaken extensive research to provide rich insights into their experiences, expectations and challenges. This work brings together quantitative analysis, qualitative feedback, and behavioural insights, enabling us to build a more complete picture of the customers we serve. By investing in this level of understanding, we are better positioned to design products, services and support models that meet real needs and deliver more meaningful outcomes for customers.

Our colleagues actively participated in both physical and virtual events with brokers throughout 2025. The understanding we gain from these interactions allows us to continuously refine our customer propositions, with our efforts recognised in our broker Net Promoter Score (NPS) of +55 for OSB and +59 for CCFS.

Group complaint handling policy

The Groups policy is designed to meet regulatory standards while prioritising a customer focused approach. Thorough and unbiased investigations of complaints are conducted and facilitated by trained staff. Processes are accessible to all customers, including those in vulnerable situations. Management information is provided to Committees and the Board, aiding informed decision-making.

Group lending policy

The Group Lending policy defines responsible lending guidelines consistent with our credit risk appetite and established criteria. Assurance processes serve as a secondary line of defence, providing independent oversight across first line assurance. Control measures, such as system parameters and underwriting procedures are in place. Our approach to affordability considers recent fluctuations in the cost of borrowing, thereby ensuring a current evaluation of a customer’s creditworthiness.

Placing the customer at the heart of our business

We work hard so that all of our customers feel supported and want to remain our customers. To support this we have a dedicated Customer and Consumer Duty Team whose purpose it is to help us understand our customers’ changing needs. This team plays a pivotal role in refining our Customer Strategy and ensuring that every interaction with our customers is thoughtfully designed and continuously improved. Through their work, we:

• Listen actively to feedback, and make sure that we take action to improve their experience of banking with us;
• Communicate clearly and effectively, so our customers always understand what we offer and how we support them;
• Map customer journeys, to identify opportunities for improvement and consistently deliver better experiences:
• Design inclusive products that are easy to use, especially for customers with vulnerabilities, ensuring no-one is left behind.

This is about building trust, deepening relationships and making it easier for our intermediary partners and customers to thrive.

To achieve our vision we offer a comprehensive range of competitive propositions, strive for exceptional customer service, and provide the necessary support to customers who may face financial difficulties. Through our specialist brands we focus on continuous investment in customer focused solutions that deliver the outcomes that are good for our customers and we are positioned to meet the unique needs of our borrowers and savers. Working with intermediaries, we help bridge the gap in housing demand across the UK, providing funding for first-time homebuyers, affordable housing developments, Buy-to-Let investments and commercial properties. Through our inclusive lending products, and expertise as specialists, we are able to help customers who may not be able to access high street lenders. Their circumstances may include:

• Customers that have more complex income structures from being self employed;
• Customers that have an adverse credit history that may have been caused by past financial difficulties or defaults; and
• First Time Buyers are helped with higher loan to value products and participation in government support schemes.

Supporting vulnerable customers

Group Customer Vulnerability Policy

We are committed to supporting customers that are in vulnerable circumstances by providing additional support for them. We have highly trained Financial Support Teams, who provide tailored assistance to those facing financial difficulties. As a Mortgage Charter signatory, we ensure the right support is available for customers who are up to date with payments but concerned about their financial situation. In 2025, we enhanced our initiatives, focusing on developing a proactive, personalised approach, simplifying the customer experience, and signposting to trusted charitable partners for additional support.

We recognise that vulnerable customer disclosure rates remain low, particularly among our mortgage customers, who engage with us through brokers. As part of the development of our new lending platform, we have collaborated closely with our broker community and our in-house vulnerable customer specialists to redesign the disclosure journey. This work has focused on making conversations about vulnerability feel more intuitive, natural, and seamlessly embedded within the customer experience. By creating an environment where customers feel better supported to share their circumstances, we can ensure we identify needs earlier and ultimately provide a more tailored and responsible service.

The Group Customer Vulnerability policy establishes standards and the methodology for recognising and assisting vulnerable customers, ensuring equitable outcomes across the Group. The Vulnerable Customer Working Group conducts regular evaluations to provide a comprehensive assessment of the state of Vulnerable Customer service across the organisation. Our strategy aims to support colleagues to recognise challenges and obstacles faced by these customers, while providing appropriate tailored support and effective solutions.

Group Arrears Management and Forbearance Policy

The Group Arrears Management and Forbearance Policy emphasises equitable treatment of customers experiencing financial challenges, actively engaging individuals exhibiting indicators of possible distress. Arrears rates are monitored on a monthly basis by the Group Credit Committee, ensuring senior management is informed. Tailored assistance is provided to customers dealing with financial pressure.

Transforming our customer experience

The Group is on a transformation journey to significantly improve and simplify our systems to support a consolidated business that contributes greater efficiency and enables growth.

In Lending, the goal is to transform the lending experience for brokers, borrowers and colleagues, underpinned by a new flexible platform fit for the future that was launched in November. Automation has reduced the time from application to offer for brokers and customers to as little as two hours.

In Savings, new journeys deliver a step change in both the customer and colleague experience, while driving efficiency and speed to market. The new savings platform enables a fully digital customer onboarding and real-time payments for instant deposits and withdrawals. It delivers an enhanced experience for our savers and self-service options to access and manage accounts anytime, anywhere.

We continue to support customers through their channel of choice including through online and telephone services. We have specifically reviewed the journeys that matter most to our customers, including the critical experience of reaching the end of a fixed-rate period for both mortgage and savings products. By mapping these journeys end-to-end, we identified opportunities to make the process clearer, more timely, and easier to navigate. As part of this work, we also reviewed and rigorously tested the communications customers receive at key points to ensure they are as clear, accessible and supportive as possible. These improvements are designed to help customers make more informed decisions with confidence and achieve better outcomes.