UK-based bank NatWest has partnered with Perse and Absolar to help businesses minimise their energy use and carbon footprint. By partnering with these two companies, NatWest aims to tackle climate change while simultaneously helping small and medium-sized enterprises to benefit financially from lowering their carbon emissions.

According to the bank’s research, half of the UK’s carbon reduction ambition could be achieved by UK small and medium-sized enterprises. However, less than 10% of SMEs surveyed said they see climate action as a source for future growth. The collaboration with Absolar provides businesses with access to a series of tools that can help them find out whether solar energy could benefit them in a significant way.

Absolar’s technology captures the solar potential of premises remotely and provides an estimate of the savings a business could make by using solar power. Reports are usually returned within 48 hours, and businesses can analyse them, view their options, and access a directory of certified suppliers in their area if they choose to move forward in this direction. The partnership with Perse offers businesses free and instantly personalised recommendations on how they can reduce their energy usage.

Specifically, companies receive suggestions to optimise energy procurement, make small changes to everyday operations, and identify useful low-carbon technologies. In the company press release, representatives from NatWest emphasised the various difficulties faced by business owners when they try to make their businesses more sustainable. The bank revealed its commitment to helping these entrepreneurs to navigate these complexities by offering access to relevant resources and insights.

In essence, NatWest’s partnership with Absolar and Perse aims to give businesses the tools they need to save money and to decarbonise their operations. Other developments from NatWest In July 2023, NatWest formed a partnership with TransUnion to introduce a new Know Your Credit Score service for customers and clients in the UK. Following this announcement, the Know Your Credit Score product will become available for all eligible UK-based clients.

The service leverages the existing software of TransUnion’s CreditView solution, which already has multiple customers of NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland. Through this collaboration, these users will be given the possibility to access their TransUnion credit score with no additional fees via an interactive dashboard while using the mobile banking application. In the same month, NatWest published a report that concluded that FIs and banks need to design frameworks for supporting a wider range of Open Banking use cases.

The report was published on ‘The (Unmet) Potential of Open Banking’ and it focuses on three main subjects, namely encouraging banks and financial institutions to expand Open Banking use cases through premium APIs, the development of new and efficient multi-party systems, as well as mandating banks to provide customers with a wider set of Open Banking use cases. .