Annual General Meeting 2025

Over the past year, you will have noticed our investment in the look and feel of our branches through new signage and branding. This effort will continue throughout the remainder of our 5-year business plan. Our branches are an important part of our business strategy, and we remain committed to offering their services.

Thank you for being a valued member of Hinckley and Rugby Building Society and for appreciating our Coalville branch. We have invested significantly in this branch, and with the recent developments outside the Market Square, we are proud of its current state and our presence there. We continue to invest in our branches and hope you have noticed the improvements to the look and feel of the Coalville branch over the past year. Our branches are an important part of our business plan, and we remain committed to offering their services. Additionally, we will continue to provide you with alternative services to ensure you have the same level of access to your accounts, even if the branch is unavailable on certain days.

Thank you for your feedback on our interest rates. It would be helpful to understand which products and services are most appropriate for you. Throughout 2024, we were at the top of many league tables for our regular saver and ISA products, as well as our fixed-term bonds. As a Building Society and mutual, we have worked hard to ensure that we pass on the benefits of interest rate changes to our savings and lending customers. Consequently, we have found ourselves at the top of the league tables, competing with much larger organisations.

We thank you for your feedback on this particular topic. In 2024, our primary goal was to launch our digital offering. However, we recognised that a series of enhancements and improvements would be necessary to further improve the customer experience and functionality. In 2025, we will prioritise several benefits for savings customers, including account opening, maturities, and other self-service items.

There are no restrictions on transferring money to us – we accept cash, cheque, faster payment, and CHAPS. We successfully joined the Confirmation of Payee scheme in Q4 last year, and this allows savers to check that the bank details input to send funds to their savings account are correct before confirming the payment. For members who are having problems with transferring funds, please come and talk to us in branch, and we will happily assist.

Forvis Mazars have been the Society’s external auditor for 3 years now. The maximum term permitted for the external auditor for a bank or building society is 10 years.

Yes, all employees have been paid above the national minimum wage (school leavers) or national living wage (those aged 21 or over). The Society actually pays a minimum of the real living wage, which is higher than the minimum statutory requirement and is independently calculated by the Living Wage Foundation to achieve a decent standard of living (over £2k per annum higher).

Salaries are set at the real living wage to help attract employees with the skills we need as well as it being the right thing to do for our employees.

Following the successful delivery of our digital project, including the launch of the online savings portal during 2023-2024 and with the branches in need of a refresh, we seized the opportunity to update the branding. In delivering the rebrand, we focused on achieving it in a cost-effective manner. The Society incurred £20,000 in costs to a design agency, which developed the original brand design. We then used in-house expertise to further develop the design to save costs.  The rebrand was coordinated with the scheduled branch network refresh, where cost would have been incurred regardless of the rebranding.

Our branches are open 6 days per week, and we are constantly reviewing the offering to make sure it meets the needs of our members. However, like all high streets around the country, footfall has fallen, quite dramatically in some instances. We remain open from 9am-2pm for walk in services and from April onwards, we will be offering Customer Savings Reviews between hours of 2pm-5pm- which are appointment-based meetings. We will keep reviewing the service and adapting to our member’s needs, but this must be balanced with the cost of running our branch network.

We do have a member’s panel/council and again, over 2024 have been revising and changing the format. During 2024 we wrote out to members asking if they would like to be part of the panel, we received 85 responses expressing a wish to be involved. We have run a number of sessions with members and valued business partners, looking at how we can improve our products and services. If this is something you would like to be involved in, then I would be delighted for you to join us.

The answer is different depending on what the question was aiming at:

• Directors fees are benchmarked against the market to ensure they are fair for the work undertaken.
• Directors and other staff are reimbursed expenses incurred in running the Society (generally travel and subsistence costs).
• The Society’s total staff and administrative expenses incurred last financial year expressed as a % of total assets benchmark below the average against other societies with total assets of less than £1bn.

Our 5-year business plan stipulates “efficient and effective” as one of our strategic objectives. It is clear that many of our processes are as a result of “how we have always done it” rather than “how it could be done for the benefit of the member”. We have a continual delivery plan of process improvements to ensure we remove these inefficiencies (as much as possible) and this focus will continue throughout 2025. I would point to Digital as an example of a large-scale efficiency and improvement- however even within this project, we know there are further enhancements needed, e.g. registration process.

Our focus for 2024 was to deploy digital, which including front end portals, user app and migration to the cloud. To you, our valued members, you have experienced positive change. We know that the digital offering has further enhancements, which including account opening, statements, and other developments. These are being deployed over the course of 2025 and will make the offering more appealing. It is fair to say that our digital offering has to meet a wide variety of users, therefore, we are never going to be Chase or Monzo with our offering. However, we are extremely proud that your Society has been able to deliver it on time and on budget. In fact, by end of 2025, 7500 users will be signed up, which is over 15% uptake within 12–18-month period.

The Board considers that a sustainable Society is one that strikes an appropriate balance between the needs of its borrowing members and saving members, whilst generating a return that enables it to continually invest for the future. This might include investing in automation, new technology, new products, and services (e.g. online savings), maintaining and updating the branch network, and investing in staff to attract, develop and retain colleagues with the right skills. Earning an appropriate return also makes the Society more resilient to operational or financial shocks. It is therefore important that the Society generates an appropriate level of profit each year The Society’s plan is to achieve an improving level of profit within the next 5 years.

The app is intentionally designed to be straightforward and user-friendly. The desktop offering remains available, with all services accessible through the app also replicated in the desktop version. Referred to as a companion app, the digital platform serves as a complementary service rather than being the sole option.

The core purpose of a building Society is to hold savings that fund mortgages. We remain mindful of the importance of offering products and services that align with our core strengths and expertise.

There is a moral obligation for financial institutions to educate the next generation of savers and borrowers. The Society is deeply committed to supporting the local community and actively provides financial literacy classes. We take great pride in the work we do. We have recently celebrated an employee receiving an award for their contribution to providing volunteering services to a school in our community.

We still offer the product and remain interested in providing a lend to improve product, however, the increase in interest rates, cost of living crisis and change in government has given a different view of the priority of a green agenda. There is limited demand from consumers as the focus remains on cost efficiencies.

15 members contacted the Society to express dissatisfaction with the rebrand, the CEO personally reached out to thank each of them for their input. Throughout its 160-year history, the Society has undertaken seven rebrands, each guided by the overarching responsibility of the CEO to ensure the organisation’s relevance amidst evolving market trends and members’ needs. The decision to rebrand was timed to coincide with essential updates to our branch network and the launch of digital services. It was driven by the belief that the previous branding had become dated and required a fresh, modernised identity.

The rebranding process incurred a cost of £20,000 for the services of a design agency, which developed the brand concept and colour palette. However, leveraging in-house expertise for further development enabled the Society to achieve significant cost savings.

This rebranding effort was executed in alignment with enhancements to the Society’s services, including its digital offerings. It provided an excellent opportunity to refresh our branch network. By adopting a gradual, intentional approach, the Society was able to avoid the financial strain of extensive immediate changes while still achieving meaningful updates.

Our overall arrears position has remained very low and strong during the peaks times, and we anticipate it to remain this way. Earlier this year, we anticipated further reductions in interest rates; however, various factors have exerted inflationary pressure, leading to higher-than-expected rates. The Society remains committed to supporting members during these challenging times.