Afternoon, everybody. As Mike just indicated, I'm Douglas Radcliffe. I'm the Group Investor Relations Director for Lloyds. As many of you will know, Lloyds Banking Group has the largest retail investor base in the U.K., and so we're very happy to be running another one of these retail briefings in conjunction with ShareSoc. We view these events as an important way of keeping in touch with our shareholders and giving retail investors the opportunity to liaise directly with the company. So thank you for joining us. If we go to the first slide, effectively within this call, I will look to provide some context on the performance of the group, including a run-through of some of the key messages from our full year 2023 results that were issued at the end of February. This should take about 20 minutes, so there'll be plenty of time for Q&A.
Before I touch upon financial performance, I'd just like to provide some context on the group as well as the strategic progress we have made so far this year. So on slide three, as I've done in previous sessions, this slide is designed to give a sense of the scale and breadth of Lloyds Banking Group to help position the strategic progress and financial results that I'll talk to on subsequent slides. As many of you will know, we are the biggest U.K. bank with 21.5 million digitally active customers. We also have around GBP 450 billion of loans and advances split across retail and commercial and the U.K.'s largest high-street banking presence. This scale is underpinned by a trusted portfolio of highly familiar bank brands such as Lloyds Bank, Halifax, and Scottish Widows.
This breadth provides us with unparalleled insights into the consumers and businesses that bank with us and allow us to develop more targeted offerings that deliver greater value for our customers and the group. It also creates a unique competitive advantage in the products and services that we can offer. I'll go into the financials in our recently announced 2023 results in detail in later slides. However, it's important to emphasize that our robust financial position means that we are well positioned to deliver for all of our stakeholders, including with increased shareholder distributions. But importantly, in line with our purpose of helping Britain prosper, it allows us to support customers in what remains an uncertain economic environment. On the next slide, you will see that we have provided proactive and targeted support during a period of ongoing uncertainty for our customers.
For example, we have contacted more than 15 million customers in 2023 to increase awareness regarding savings options and enhance propositions. Off the back of this, more customers trusted us with their savings, with balances actually growing in the year. We have also used our data insights to contact around 7.5 million customers offering support where required. Alongside this, our purpose-driven strategy is focused on building a more inclusive society. To this end, we have provided further support to first-time buyers and the social housing sector. Those are both part of a multi-year commitment that combined totals nearly GBP 100 billion of support since 2018. Finally, supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy and creating a more sustainable future remains of great importance.
Combined, these actions are representative of the strength of our purpose, helping Britain prosper, which enables us to successfully deliver for all stakeholders and deliver profitable growth for the business. I'll now go into the specific progress we have made towards our strategy on slide five. As you may remember, we have a clear strategic vision of being a U.K.-focused, customer-focused, digital leader, and integrated financial services provider capitalizing on new opportunities at scale. We are focused on driving revenue growth and diversification, strengthening our cost and capital efficiency, and maximizing the potential of people, technology, and data. In particular, our growth initiatives are focused on deepening and innovating in consumer, creating a new Mass Affluent offering, building our corporate and institutional offering, and digitizing and diversifying our SME business.
If you want any more detail on these initiatives, please do look at our website, as we've done a number of strategic updates on each of these areas presented by the respective management teams. Indeed, we are doing an update on the Mass Affluent and insurance business next week. We have now completed the second year of our five-year transformation under the new management team, with just one year left to deliver the interim 2024 actions. In 2022, we prioritized reorganizing the group and laying the foundations for our strategic success. Having achieved this, 2023 has seen us build momentum across our strategic initiatives. We have now delivered more than GBP 2 billion of incremental strategic investment, with GBP 1.3 billion invested in 2023.
As many of you will know, we committed to investing GBP 3 billion of strategic investment over the first three years of the plan, with GBP 4 billion over the first five-year period. We remain on track to deliver the majority of our 2024 strategic objectives, with 20% currently tracking ahead of plan. Whilst we do have a small proportion that are currently behind schedule, in part due to changes in the external environment, this is to be expected in a strategic transformation as significant as ours. Encouragingly, our strategic delivery is translating into positive financial benefits. We have now realized around GBP 0.5 billion of additional strategic revenues and GBP 0.7 billion of gross cost savings.
These provide us with confidence that we will deliver the targeted financial benefits in both 2024 and 2026, and you'll see that that was clearly a key part of the results presentation we made in February. Those financial benefits include a return on tangible equity of greater than 15% and capital generation of more than 200 basis points in 2026, both an increase of where we are now. Consequently, I'm pleased to say we are progressing well and are on course to meet our targeted outcomes. This, in turn, supports our revenue and cost targets at group level, which is a reminder to deliver GBP 0.7 billion of additional revenues by 2024, growing to GBP 1.5 billion by 2026, while at the same time targeting GBP 1.2 billion of gross cost savings by 2024. I'll now talk to our latest financials.
I am going to largely use the slides we used with institutional investors at the Q4 results, as I think it's helpful for you to see what was presented. But I'll bring focus on specific areas that are worth highlighting, and you'll be reassured I'm not using all of the slides. So let's start on slide six. The group delivered a robust financial performance in 2023, meeting our guidance and demonstrating a resilient franchise. Statutory Profit after tax was GBP 5.5 billion. This was an improvement on the prior year and was predominantly driven by net income, which includes net interest income, other income, and operating lease depreciation of GBP 17.9 billion, 3% up on the prior year.
As you know, this is highly linked to our net interest margin, which is the difference between the interest we earn and the interest we pay, and this was 311 basis points for 2023, very slightly ahead of our guidance. We also saw 10% growth in other income, partly offset by a higher operating lease depreciation charge that largely relates to our Vehicle Leasing Business, Lex, and Tusker. Operating costs were GBP 9.1 billion, in line with guidance, and up 5% year-on-year. As a group, we remain committed to our market-leading efficiency. This increase was in line with expectations and reflects our continued strategic investment as well as the effects of inflation. We also took a provision for motor finance for GBP 450 million, and I'm sure I'll provide further detail on this later in the presentation. Importantly, asset quality remained strong.
The impairment charge of GBP 308 million includes a significant single-name writeback as well as the impact of an improved economic outlook. Excluding these, the asset quality ratio would have been 29 basis points, still in line with our guidance. In addition, the group delivered strong capital generation of 173 basis points after regulatory headwinds. This is important, as it is the capital generation that enables the capital return, whether through a dividend or a buyback. Strong capital generation enabled an increased total capital return of GBP 3.8 billion for 2023. This includes a 2.76 pence per share total dividend, which was up 15% year-on-year. I'll now turn to slide seven to look at our customer franchise. The customer franchise is resilient. Total lending balances stood at GBP 450 billion in 2023. They are 1% on the prior year, including GBP 2 billion in the fourth quarter.
The year-on-year movement includes securitizations of over GBP 5 billion of legacy mortgages and unsecured loans, which removed the loans from our balance sheet. Excluding these, lending balances were stable on the year. The mortgage market remains competitive, with completion margins that's the difference between the amount we charge on the mortgage and the cost of funding that loan at around 60 basis points, which is lower than historical norms. We expect that to remain the case in the short term. That said, mortgage lending remains attractive from a returns and an economic value perspective. Commercial banking lending was down GBP 2.9 billion in the quarter. This included GBP 0.5 billion of repayments of government-backed lending within the small and medium business enterprise. Additionally, total deposits were down 1% in 2023 as a whole, however up more than GBP 1 billion in Q4.
This included an outflow of GBP 1.9 billion in retail current accounts compared to GBP 3.2 billion in Q3. However, the return in current accounts was more than offset by inflows of almost GBP 4 billion of savings, as we continue to recapture a high proportion of current account outflows within our savings products, as well as gaining new customers through our attractive offerings. Commercial banking deposits were down GBP 0.9 billion in Q4, predominantly in the small and medium businesses.
Moving on to slide eight and group income. The group saw solid income growth in 2023, as you can see on the charts. NII of GBP 13.8 billion was up 5% on the prior year. Q4 was down 4% quarter-on-quarter. The full-year net interest margin was up 17 basis points on 2022, at 311 basis points, in line with our guidance for greater than 310 basis points, as I mentioned earlier.
This benefited from the impact of base rate changes, which outweighed pressures from mortgage pricing and deposit churn, which is a term to describe outflow of personal current accounts into higher interest-earning accounts, as you would expect in a higher rate environment. The fourth quarter margin of 298 basis points was down 10 basis points compared to Q3, a touch more than we expected. This reflects lower personal current account balances through most of the quarter, a higher-than-expected reduction in non-interest-bearing deposits in the commercial bank, and mortgage pressures. Average interest-earning assets of GBP 453 billion were up slightly compared to 2022, with the fourth quarter broadly stable. We now expect average interest-earning assets to be above GBP 450 billion in 2024. Alongside, we now expect the net interest margin to be greater than 290 basis points this year.
Within this, we will see further pressure from mortgage book refinancing and ongoing deposit churn, albeit both of these issues are expected to ease through 2024. In the other direction, the structural hedge provides a continued benefit. Our assumption of three Bank Based Rate reductions, each of 25 basis points, in 2024, starting in June, is an important input to this guidance. So let's look at costs on slide nine. Cost management continues to be very important to us. Operating costs are up 5%, driven by planned strategic investments, the costs associated with new business, and the impacts of inflation. We now expect 2024 operating costs to be GBP 9.3 billion, slightly higher than our original expectation. This is due partly to higher inflation, but mainly due to higher severance payments that will improve efficiency over time.
The GBP 9.3 billion is net of achieving our GBP 1.2 billion of cost saves as we continue to manage inflationary pressure. Remediation costs in the year increased to GBP 675 million. This is due to the GBP 450 million provision for the potential impact of the FCA review into historical motor finance commissions. This provision reflects estimates for operational and legal costs. It also reflects an assessment of potential redress based on a range of scenarios and assumptions. There remains significant uncertainty, and the financial impact could differ materially from the amount that we provided, either up or down.
We welcome the independent FCA intervention to help ensure we get to the right outcome. Let me now move on to asset quality on slide 10. Asset quality remains strong across the group. The impairment charge of GBP 308 million reflects the resilience of our prime customer base and our prudent approach to risk.
Alongside, we experienced a significant writeback in Q4. Furthermore, the charge reduced in Q4 due to a release of GBP 257 million due to forecast adjustments to reflect the slightly improved economic outlook. This actually caused the Q4, so the fourth quarter impairment charge, to be a net credit of GBP 541 million. Again, excluding the writeback and economic forecast adjustments, the charge was stable quarter on quarter, and the asset quality ratio was 29 basis points, which was in line with guidance. In ongoing resilience of the portfolio, we expect the asset quality ratio to be less than 30 basis points in 2024. Let me now turn to slide eleven to look at our updated economic assumptions, which clearly are focused on the UK. We have made modestly positive revisions to our updated economic outlook. We still believe GDP growth will be subdued this year.
However, we now expect inflation to fall more sharply. This will allow three Bank Base Rate cuts in 2024 from the current 5.25% level starting in June. Our house price index outlook has improved since our last estimates. We now expect only a slight fall of around 2% this year, helped by a lower rate environment. Though, if you look at the early months of this year, we've actually seen increases. Meanwhile, unemployment is expected to remain low, peaking at 5.2% in the fourth quarter of 2024. Turning now to capital generation on slide 12. We delivered strong capital generation in 2023. Within this, risk-weighted assets were up GBP 8.2 billion. This includes a GBP 5 billion adjustment relating to a regulatory impact called the Capital Requirements Directive IV, or CRD IV. GBP 2 billion of this was taken in the fourth quarter. The implementation of CRD IV is ongoing.
We expect a further RWA increase of about GBP 5 billion, phased between 2024 and 2026, subject to further PRA review. In this context, we continue to expect RWAs to be within our guidance, GBP 220 billion-GBP 225 billion, at the end of this year. Capital generation was 127 basis points after regulatory headwinds, or 223 basis points before these, in line with guidance and driven by robust profitability. The impact of the higher remediation charge in the fourth quarter was more than offset by the one-off writeback in the same period. The group has a clear capital distribution policy. That represents our focus on returning capital to shareholders.
This policy, which has remained unchanged for a few years, encompasses a progressive and sustainable ordinary dividend, which enabled the board to announce a final ordinary dividend of 1.84 pence per share, making it a total of 2.76 pence per share for the year. That dividend is up 15% on 2022, on the back of an increase of 20% the year before. Alongside this, we have a buyback program of GBP 2 billion, meaning the group will distribute a total of up to GBP 3.8 billion with regard to last year.
This was around 14% of our market cap. It is worth noting that in the fourth quarter, we also made a GBP 250 million further pension contribution. This closes off the remainder of the deficit and means there'll be no further deficit contributions in the current triennial period to December 2025. Our year-end pro forma CET1 ratio of 13.7% remains strong.
The board continues to review the appropriate capital target for the group, and based on regulatory, economic, and business considerations, including our risk profile, the board has now determined that 13% as a CET1 ratio is the right target. As before, our target continues to include a management buffer of 1%. We view this change in target as a positive development indicating the strength of the group. In order to manage risks and distributions in an orderly way, we expect CET1 to adapt around 13% by the end of 2026. Going forward, we continue to expect 2024 capital generation, post-regulatory headwinds, to be around 175 basis points. So let me now talk to the future on slide 13.
We are progressing well towards generating higher and more sustainable returns for shareholders, and for 2024, we now expect the margin to be greater than 290 basis points, operating cost to be around 9.3, and the asset quality ratio to be less than 30 basis points. We also continue to expect the return on tangible equity to be around 13%, RWAs between 220-225, capital generation to be around 175, and paydown to a 13.5% CET1 ratio. In the medium term, very importantly, we remain confident in delivering our vision of higher, more sustainable returns by 2026. We are retaining our medium-term targets, specifically cost-income ratio to be below 50%, return on tangible equity to be greater than 15%, and capital generation to be greater than 200 basis points. In addition, and as mentioned, we now expect paydown to circa 13% by the end of 2026.
In sum, we look forward to continuing to deliver for our shareholders. So let me just bring this all together on slide 14. Overall, you'll see the group delivered a robust financial performance in 2023, with income growth, disciplined cost management, and strong asset quality together driving capital generation. There were a lot of moving parts in the fourth quarter, but underlying that, the business has performed strongly. We've now completed the second year of our strategic transformation and are generating real business momentum. We remain on track to meet our strategic targeted outcomes. We have also met or exceeded the guidance that we laid out during the year, while taking proactive action to address a number of headwinds, and we are confident of delivering higher, more sustainable returns for shareholders. We are committed to our progressive and sustainable dividend policy and, despite the noise, providing an increased total dividend.
Importantly, as I said earlier, we are reiterating both our returns and capital generation guidance for 2024 and 2026. I am conscious that this is not yet being reflected in the share price, largely given various external factors. As a group, we will continue to work to deliver a robust financial performance, whilst making progress against our strategic ambitions and, most importantly, supporting our customers. Positively, and despite the quarter, Charlie and William's 2023 messaging had a positive market reaction, as you've seen, in recent weeks in the share price. That concludes my comments. Thank you for listening, and we now have some time for Q&A. As Mike mentioned, if you could type your questions into the Q&A box, and then we will address them as they come up.
There are a number of questions that have come through, and I'll deal with these on a regular basis, so just going through. So the first question was, what was and what happened to the benefit of the Telegraph sale proceeds? So as you will have noted from my presentation, clearly there were a number of moving parts in 2023, and I talked about the significant writeback that came from one particular transaction. Clearly, that's the transaction that you're talking about. We haven't disclosed exactly the value of that transaction, but it clearly was significant in the fourth quarter. In any year, there are always a number of moving parts that go through, whether that be strengths in income, whether it be additional costs, whether it be inflation.
Even when it looked at regulatory demands that come through, so for example, we took an additional GBP 5 billion of risk-weighted assets during the year from CRD IV. Essentially, what we did was those Telegraph sales were included. Likewise, we also had the impact, which was a negative, of the GBP 450 million provision on motor finance, which I'm sure I'll provide a little bit more detail on in a second because I think another one of my questions relates or another one of the questions relates to that. So essentially, what we're saying, it was all included in the profits for the year. Despite all the different elements that came through, in 2023, we actually delivered in line with guidance and in line with our expectations. We'd guided to 175 basis points of capital generation, and we'd highlighted that we'd have a progressive and sustainable ordinary dividend.
So as a result of all of those elements, we were still able to meet guidance, increase the ordinary dividend, and indeed maintain a buyback of GBP 2 billion. So essentially, different benefits were offset by other negatives in the performance year, but we were still able to deliver in line with guidance. So that was the question that came through on the Telegraph sale. There's also a question on the sale of the Scottish Widows' GBP 6 billion annuity book. So this is something that you may well have seen in the press over the last couple of days. In essence, we have recently sold, effectively, our bulk annuity business from the Scottish Widows portfolio. We've sold it to Rothesay, who are basically the U.K.'s largest pension insurance specialist, and that transaction was announced yesterday.
In essence, when you look at that portfolio, the decision to exit that portfolio when you look at it from a financial perspective, it wasn't material from a group perspective. So it doesn't actually make that much difference from either an income or a capital perspective in the results. Essentially, when you look at why we're actually making that sale of the bulk annuity portfolio, it's for a number of different reasons. Firstly, it's de-risking the business. Secondly, it's actually focusing the Scottish Widows' insurance business on franchise-dependent businesses. So when you look at where the focus of the Scottish Widows' business is, it's more around general insurance, workplace pensions, and indeed annuities. And the view was that bulk annuities weren't a focus for us, given the fact that they were relatively capital-intensive as well.
So essentially, what it means is that we can reallocate the capital that was previously allocated to that business to other group businesses. As I say, the actual overall impact of that sale isn't actually material, hence why you won't see any specific returns or anything coming through as a one-off in the results. There was also a question on the motor finance book and the GBP 450 million.
Essentially, the GBP 450 million was a provision that we took in respect of this is the recent FCA investigation into motor finance commission arrangements. So that charge that we've taken for GBP 450 million includes estimates for operational and legal costs, as well as an estimate for potential redress based on, essentially, various scenarios using a range of assumptions, including commission models, commission rates, applicable periods - it could be anytime from 2007 to 2021 - response rates and uphold rates.
Now, what I would say is the fact that significant uncertainty remains as to the extent of misconduct and customer loss. This all arises from one Financial Ombudsman case, and the actual circumstances in that case may or may not be relevant to other cases across the industry. So the FCA intervened and indicated that they would undertake a full review of the business, not just our business, but across the whole of the piece. And actually, this is a significant area of interest for the whole of the motor industry as well as the financial services industry, as the vast majority of cars are actually financed in the U.K., and indeed a lot of the car manufacturers actually provide finance themselves. So actually, there is significant uncertainty. It's unclear at the moment as to whether there will be any misconduct or customer loss.
So the ultimate financial impact could actually differ materially and could actually be higher, or it could be lower. We believe that we were compliant with all the law and the regulation at the time, and we welcome the FCA intervention to provide that clarity. Hopefully, that's appropriate and gives you as much detail as possible at this moment. Clearly, it's something that we're going to have to progress. The FCA are undertaking this review. That review is meant to be reporting as at the end of September, and hopefully, we'll be able to update you at that point in time. Another question that's come through is, to what extent will the impairment charge and provision for impairments rise in 2024 and 2025, given the straightened situation for customers and the significant rise in interest rates?
Well, this is really interesting, actually, when you look at it because if you look at our guidance, if you look at the performance on impairment and indeed our guidance going forward, what you'll see is the fact that actually, in 2023, our asset quality remained really strong. A lot of this is because actually the nature of our book means it's very much a prime book. Impairments and indeed the AQR, so the asset quality ratio, includes that single name, debt repayments, that we talked about earlier. And excluding this and the economic outlook improvements that we saw, the nature of accounting means that you actually reflect your expectations for the economy in your impairment charge. And so if you strip out those two elements, the full-year charge in 2023 was about GBP 1.3 billion. That equates to an AQR of about 29 basis points, as I mentioned earlier.
If you actually look at our guidance, our guidance for our asset quality ratio in 2024 is less than 30 basis points. So although it clearly from an underlying basis, we expect we don't expect a significant well, we don't expect deterioration in that asset quality ratio on an underlying basis. If you look at the trends in new to arrears, we're simply not seeing any significant deterioration in either the consumer books or indeed the commercial books. Now, there's a number of reasons for that, one of which I already mentioned is the fact that we have a prime book. Secondly, you could argue that actually we're expecting three rate reductions this year, as I highlighted.
If that is the case, that does actually mean that we've reached the peak from an interest rate perspective, and interest rates should fall from here, making it easier from a customer perspective. Now, don't get me wrong, the biggest challenge here will be mortgages. Mortgages represent more than GBP 300 billion of our GBP 450 billion loans and advances. A number of those people will actually be effectively, their mortgages will be maturing over the next 12, 18 months, two years, and those rates that they will have to invest in will be more than they had three, five years ago. But it will still be less than where it was 12 months ago. And from everything we can see at the moment, as I say, that new to arrears isn't deteriorating.
Hopefully, that gives you a bit of clarity as to the strength of the asset quality and the fact that we're simply not seeing the deterioration at the moment. There's a question on when will shareholders benefit? I would argue here that actually shareholders are benefiting already. Now, when you look at it from a shareholder perspective, there are two ways in which you gain your returns, one of which is effectively capital return. Capital return is indeed the actual ordinary dividend or special dividend and indeed the buyback. You look at it from an ordinary dividend perspective, as I indicated in my actual presentation itself. The ordinary dividend increased by 15% this year. It increased by 20% the year before. That's immediately seeing that actually the ordinary dividend continues to increase, so we continue to benefit shareholders.
At the same time, we've actually and that equates to about GBP 1.8 billion. At the same time, you've got a buyback that's been announced again, given the excess capital, which is for GBP 2 billion. We had a GBP 2 billion buyback last year as well. So that will continue to reduce the share count of the organization, which should fundamentally enhance the dividend per share and indeed the tangible net asset value per share.
So both of those are returns that are currently being received. The other element, of course, where shareholders can benefit or indeed suffer is actually the share price itself. I think the share price at the moment is about 49p. Clearly, we're well aware that it hasn't progressed as we would want it to over the last few years. But actually, if you look at it since the results in February, we have seen an improvement.
As we all know, there are numerous factors that impact the share price at any one point in time, not just the performance of the organization, but also external factors, whether that be the economic environment, whether that be the political environment, whether that be the regulatory environment. And as we all know, that there's been a huge uncertainty with regards to the U.K. and the economic environment and how that's going to play out. So all of those factors go into the share price. Hopefully, we'll get some greater clarity this year once we've had a general election, once we've got more clarity on what that means for the economy, and the actual share price can start to react appropriately. In the meantime, as a management team, what we're very much focused on is delivering against strategy.
If we can deliver the additional GBP 1.5 billion of strategic income, that will make a significant difference. At the same time, what we should see is about two or three primary factors that really impact the earnings of the business going forward. Firstly, we have the remortgage book pricing. Effectively, we've got a significant amount of the mortgage book that reprices from high rates that were written probably three, four years ago, a lot of that during COVID, that will end up being repricing to lower levels. If you look at it from a competition completion level perspective, as I say, we're writing the mortgage market is very competitive, and we're writing mortgages at about 60 basis points. That still adds value. That still is beneficial for the group as a whole, but it's less than what we were doing previously.
But that tends to play through the rest of 2024 and indeed in 2025. Likewise, what you see is an element of deposit migration. In a rising rate environment, what you often tend to find is that people will move their funds from current accounts to savings, from savings to fixed-term deposits, as they can see higher rates available elsewhere. That's a very normal phenomenon in a rising rate environment. But what we're now starting to see, obviously, is the projections are that that rate environment will reduce. So in a reducing rate environment, you would expect that level of migration to reduce. It's a very standard sort of approach and standard, almost like direction, that you tend to see in this sort of economic environment. And at the same time, we're actually reinvesting a lot of money from a structural hedge perspective in the rate environment.
Clearly, you can reinvest what we see as interest rate insensitive balances in the markets, and the rate you're receiving on that is significantly greater than the value that you're currently attaining. So all of those elements seem to would indicate that actually they provide a good direction for the group, hence why we have the additional well, we have higher capital generation of greater than 200 basis points by 2026 and indeed higher returns of more than 15%. So very much strategic drivers. If you look at it, we've got a question on Citra Living. Citra Living is effectively where we are investing in retail properties to do let-out to clients. That business is a business that's been going for two or three years now. It's a business that actually is still relatively small from an overall balance sheet perspective, so it doesn't really get highlighted.
There is certainly growth there. Given our expertise in the property market, as the largest lender in the U.K. and indeed expertise around general property, we felt that's an area that we can add value and should be a good, viable business. It does, however, remain small. It is included in the P&L and is included in the balance sheet. The next question was really about how do Lloyds see prospects for banks with a Labour government, which is a really interesting question because clearly, from a political environment, we have to make sure that we are able to participate effectively in the U.K. economy irrespective of which political party is running that.
It's yet to be seen exactly what the policies will look like, but clearly, the Labour Party have already put out papers as to what they expect to see and how they expect to operate, not just with financial services companies and corporates. I think one of the clear elements is that it's going to be expected that private institutions, private balance sheets, and indeed banks will have a significant role to play in providing funding, in providing lending to corporates and indeed individuals, which should drive growth in the economy as a whole. Very much a case of we'll depend on the precise policies, but from the information that's been highlighted so far, it's looking that there's certainly promise. We'll have to see as that plays out.
The final question that I've got is essentially on share prices and how they've evolved over the last decade, if indeed longer. Now, from a management perspective, actually, if you look at it from, unlike a lot of management teams or banks in the U.K., we've only pretty much had two CEOs and two management teams. I do think that consistency of management is a benefit and help for us as an organization because consistency of strategy and delivery should well be beneficial. We do trade at higher multiples than our direct U.K. peers. The current management team have now been in place for, what, two and a half years. They laid out their strategy, as I say, just over two years ago, so in February 2022. Good progress is being made against that strategy. We're committed to delivering against the guidance for 2024 and 2026.
If we can deliver that at the same time of delivering the capital return that we intend to, then that should be beneficial for all shareholders. Okay. That actually concludes the questions. We're actually out of time as well. We've gone slightly over, but I was very keen to make sure that we addressed all of the questions that were on the notice board. The last thing I suppose I just want to say is thank you very much indeed for dialing in. Thank you for your interest in Lloyds, and have a good rest of the afternoon. Thank you.