NatWest has been active in the community finance sector since the mid-1990s — over 30 years of involvement. The bank was a founding funder and partner of Responsible Finance (formerly the Community Development Finance Association), contributed more than £1 million in funding and technical assistance between 2008 and 2012, and in 1999 set up its own CDFI — NatWest Social and Community Capital — making it the only bank ever to have created such a vehicle.
In 1999, NatWest took the unusual step of creating its own CDFI — NatWest Social and Community Capital (S&CC). No other UK bank has ever done the same. This move placed NatWest well ahead of its peers in committing institutional resources, not just money, to the community finance sector.
Between 2008 and 2012, the bank went further: it directed over £1 million in combined funding and technical assistance programmes to Responsible Finance, then operating as the Community Development Finance Association. This wasn't passive philanthropy — it was hands-on sector development, helping build the infrastructure of an entire lending ecosystem.
You can hear Brian Holland and Stuart Foster discuss this history in full on The Responsible Finance Podcast, available on Listenly.
NatWest's involvement goes beyond its own programmes. In 2009, as part of the Merlin Agreement, it was one of four banks that together provided £50 million of investment to create what is now Better Society Capital — a major wholesale funder of social investment in the UK. Stuart Foster served on the Better Society Capital board for 6.5 years, a direct demonstration of NatWest's long-term institutional commitment.
This history of co-founding, funding, and board-level participation across the sector shapes the credibility both Holland and Foster bring to the conversation — and explains why NatWest was chosen to host the launch of Responsible Finance's 2023 impact report in May 2024.
"CDFIs provide a terrific part of the overall ecosystem of financial services — for those who are not able to borrow from the mainstream banks, CDFIs do a brilliant job filling that gap."
Brian Holland — Director, Customer Vulnerability, Retail Controls and Remediation, NatWest Group.
Holland has spent 14 years at NatWest, leading the bank's approach to vulnerable customers across consumer duty, retail risk and control, and remediation. He co-authored the joint foreword to Responsible Finance's 2023 impact report alongside Stuart Foster, Managing Director of Financial Institutions at NatWest, who has been with the bank for 24 years and oversees all products and services delivered to institutional clients — from banks and funds to insurance companies.
Kate Pender argues that when providers assess the risks of serving a very different customer group, it is too often seen as simply not worth attempting — a perception that must shift before mainstream institutions will genuinely engage with the financially vulnerable.
Fair4All Finance applies what Kate Pender describes as a socially adjusted return framework — weighing not only financial return on capital, but the social outcomes generated for people in financially vulnerable circumstances.
Kate Pender describes Fair4All Finance as having been "kidnapped a couple of times": first by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which diverted the organisation's attention and resources at a critical moment in its early development.
Hear Brian Holland and Stuart Foster trace 30 years of NatWest's work with community finance — and discuss what comes next.
Listen to the episode on Listenly