Perigon Partners · Annual Research

Banking Barometer.
Est. 2023.

Three years of independent benchmarking across 57+ UK and Irish financial institutions. The only research delving into sustainability and strategic performance across UK banks, building societies and fintechs of all sizes.

3 Annual editions
57+ Institutions assessed
65% Have a net zero target
1 in 4 Don't mention AI at all
90% Full service banks have a transition plan
About the research

Independent. Rigorous. Unsponsored.

The Banking Barometer is Perigon Partners' annual, independent assessment of sustainability and strategic reporting across UK and Irish financial services. We analyse what institutions actually disclose, not what they tell us in conversation.

Our cohort spans the full breadth of the sector: from small fintechs to the largest full service banks, from building societies to specialist and challenger banks. No institution has paid to be included. No sponsor influences our conclusions. What you read here is what we found.

Source material

Annual reports, standalone sustainability and climate reports, supplementary web disclosures. All publicly available.

Assessment window

Disclosures assessed in November preceding publication. Only published data included. Work in progress does not count.

Cohort consistency

Core cohort maintained year-on-year for comparability, with deliberate expansion in 2024 and refinement in 2025.

AI-assisted analysis

From 2025, AI agents with human-in-the-loop review used for sentiment analysis, strategy scoring and target tracking.

Three-year trends · 2023 to 2025

What the data shows across three editions.

From a standing start in 2023 to a maturing but uneven sector in 2025.

31%
→ No movement
Materiality assessed in 2023, 2024 and 2025 alike. The one figure that refuses to shift.
21
↑ More than doubled
Banks with a transition plan in 2025, up from 9 in 2024 and near-zero in 2023.
49%
↑ +16 percentage points
Now reporting financed emissions, up from 33% in 2023. Becoming a hygiene factor.
65%
↑ Growing and more credible
Have a confirmed net zero target in 2025. 83% of those target 2050.
90%
↑ From near-zero in 2023
Full service banks now have a climate transition plan, the sector's strongest cohort.
16%
→ New in 2025
Operating AI at a strategic or embedded level. 84% are still essentially watching.
Emissions reporting coverage · % of cohort, 2023–2025
Three scope categories tracked annually. Scope 1&2 near-universal; financed emissions gaining ground.
The editions

Three years. Three reports.

Each edition builds on the last. Explore the full findings, year by year.

Latest edition
2025
For FY ended 2024 · 57 institutions · 5 themes
Cohort size57 institutions
Net zero targets65% (37 banks)
Transition plans37% (21 banks)
AI at strategic level16% (9 banks)
New in this editionBusiness strategy + AI scores
Read the 2025 Barometer
Second edition
2024
For FY ended 2023/4 · 61 institutions · 5 themes
Cohort size61 institutions
With a materiality assessment30%
With a sustainability strategy70%
Transition plans published13% (8 banks)
Reporting financed emissions52%
Read the 2024 Benchmark
First edition
2023
For FY ended 2022/3 · 51 institutions · 5 themes
Cohort size51 institutions
With materiality assessment31% (16 banks)
With sustainability strategy65%
Reporting Scope 1 & 2~86%
Reporting financed emissions33%
Read the 2023 Benchmark
Common questions

What people want to know.

The Banking Barometer is Perigon Partners' annual, independent benchmark of sustainability, climate and strategic reporting across UK and Irish financial institutions. Published since 2023, it analyses public disclosures from annual reports, covering materiality, ESG strategy, GHG emissions, climate targets, and (from 2025) business strategy quality and AI maturity. It is the only benchmark spanning the full breadth of the UK banking market, from micro fintechs to global full service banks.
51 institutions in 2023, 61 in 2024, and 57 in 2025. The cohort spans full service banks (HSBC, Barclays, NatWest, Lloyds), specialist and challenger banks, building societies, and fintechs, from small mutual societies to institutions with over £100bn in lending.
65% of the 57-institution cohort: 37 banks have a confirmed net zero target as of FY2024. 83% target 2050. This is up from 34 institutions in FY2023. Despite media narratives of retreat, Perigon's data shows the sector is making net positive progress on climate targets.
37% (21 of 57) had published a climate transition plan by FY2024, more than doubling from 9 the prior year. 90% of full service banks now have a plan. Building societies lag significantly. In 2023, the figure was near-zero.
The 2025 Barometer scored AI maturity on a six-level scale (0=Absent to 5=GenAI Native). 1 in 4 banks made no mention of AI in their annual report. Only 9 banks (16%) were at Level 3 or above. No bank achieved Level 5. Publicly listed institutions were 17.6x more likely to score higher than member-owned building societies.
No. The Banking Barometer is entirely independent and unsponsored. No institution has paid to be included and no sponsor influences the conclusions. Analysis is based solely on publicly available disclosures.
Only publicly available documents: annual reports and accounts, standalone sustainability and climate reports, and supplementary web disclosures. Only published data is included. Verbal commitments do not count. From 2025, AI agents with human-in-the-loop review are used for data extraction, sentiment analysis and strategy scoring.