Friendly by Name, Supportive and Creative by Nature: This Mutual is True to its Mission and Core Values

Scottish Friendly’s commitment remains firmly on helping its customers achieve optimal financial outcomes.

Scottish Friendly remains resolute in its commitment to serving and supporting its customers and their families, whatever the future holds. The organisations status as a mutual means that it is not driven by the needs of shareholders. Instead, they are focused on distributing profits to enhance the investment return of With-Profits policies, or to invest in generating future profits for their members. They firmly understand that their customers live busy lives, and they are doing the very best they can for their families. As a mutual, Scottish Friendly are here for them, delivering its purpose to help individuals and their families achieve financial wellbeing through friendly products and customer care.

During 2022, Scottish Friendly colleagues developed and launched a refreshed purpose statement. Scottish Friendly prides itself on providing products and services that cater for everyone, regardless of age, income, or of any previous financial experience. The purpose reflects the important role Scottish Friendly recognises it can play in the lives of UK households and encapsulates the passion and energy that colleagues bring to their work on a daily basis.

As a mutual, they care about helping local communities. They have increased their support for Action for Children and are providing vital funding for two Wellbeing Practitioner roles. These roles help improve the mental health and wellbeing of children in secondary schools in some of the most deprived areas in Glasgow. This targeted support aims to help young people manage and improve their mental health and wellbeing, as well as provide them with coping strategies and resilience for the future. In supporting the funding of the Wellbeing Practitioner roles, Scottish Friendly hope that they can improve the lives and outlook of young people in need, which can benefit the family unit and, in turn, help the wider community prosper.

The mutual is also delighted to continue to support the Scottish Friendly Children’s Book Tour in partnership with Scottish Book Trust. For over 25 years, the Scottish Friendly Children’s Book Tour has supported Scottish Book Trust on their mission to help improve children’s literacy. Touring throughout Scotland, both face to face in primary and secondary schools, as well as virtually, the programme visits a vast range of communities, including remote areas with top authors and illustrators to help encourage a love for reading, writing and illustration.

Scottish Friendly has an ambition to be an excellent place to work and have again taken part in the ‘UK’s Best 100 Companies’ 2024 Survey. Scottish Friendly is proud to have been awarded ‘Very Good Company to Work For’ status. They now also hold position 31 in the ‘Top 50 Best Companies to Work for in Scotland’ and are ranked one of the ‘Top 50 Best Companies to Work For In the Financial Services Sector’. Their people work tirelessly to drive Scottish Friendly forward. In turn, Scottish Friendly is working tirelessly to continue to improve and become an excellent place to work.

Scottish Friendly has continued the development of its very successful early careers programme, which began in 2022 and recruits interns, apprentices, and graduates. The 2022 apprentices completed their programme in 2023, each gaining permanent roles within Scottish Friendly. This has a particular focus on trying to recruit young people from backgrounds that would not typically be drawn to financial services and has been supported by the Robertson Trust in filling placements that have turned into permanent roles. Through this partnership with ‘Developing The Young Workforce’, Scottish Friendly has been supporting Bannerman High School in Glasgow and has supported development initiatives with their students, including visits to the Scottish Friendly head office. In 2024, they continue to further support the students with mentoring, CV writing and will hire a new cohort of apprentices to continue this vitally important initiative.

Scottish Friendly reviewed its corporate strategy which confirmed the Boards confidence in its existing strategy. Additionally, this review helped to sharpen its focus going forward and helped identify where to build on existing strengths as they seek to further support its customers with a more comprehensive range of savings, investments, protection, and retirement solutions. Key to this is continuing to invest in improving the customer experience, providing career development opportunities for colleagues, and targeting further growth in new customers and the products and services they offer.

The encouraging headlines pointing to cost-of-living pressures finally starting to ease should not obscure the fact that persistent economic headwinds have taken a toll on many UK household budgets and their ability to save, invest and protect themselves and their loved ones.

Looking ahead Scottish Friendly is confident that they will be resilient in the face of continued economic uncertainty and that the mutual model will continue to serve its customers’ interests well. Scottish Friendly’s commitment remains firmly on helping customers achieve the best possible financial outcomes. Scottish Friendly has an exciting future ahead thanks to the refreshed strategy and the unwavering commitment of colleagues to deliver for customers and the communities that they serve.