The trade body’s latest trading report and accounts state the loss was as a result of bringing the six previous trade bodies together to form the business.
UK Finance had already made a £5.5m loss up to the end of June 2017 and made a further £9.6m loss between July and December 2017.
The biggest expense quoted over the six-month period was £11.7m on its 167 employees and directors.
Of this, £3.68m was attributed to non-recurring restructuring costs – potentially including redundancies and other departing expenses.
Consultants and expenses
In addition to the £11.7 staff costs, a further £3.55m was paid on professional and consultancy fees, while £254,000 went on travel and subsistence payments in the six months.
Directors’ remuneration totalled £453,000, with the highest paid director receiving £353,000, although there are no pension benefits listed for the directors.
Eight members have agreed to prefund UK Finance to a total of £7.8m by agreeing to waive their right to a refund of 50% of their prepaid membership subscriptions.
Six of these prefunding institutions have also provided a guarantee to the landlord of UK Finance’s office space that rent will be paid for the full 15-year term of the lease.
Risks and objectives
The report also identified the principal risks facing the organisation and its strategic objectives.
Recruitment and retention of key people, cash flow during start-up and transformation phase and data migration from previous trade bodies were highlighted as the body’s principal risks.
Strategic risks include ensuring General Data Protection Regulation compliance, strengthening commercial revenue, managing key member relationships and again recruitment and retention of key people.
Strategic objectives cited are: Serving customers better, supporting the economy, enhancing competitiveness, fighting fraud and cyber crime, embracing innovation, and earning trust.
It added that its performance would be monitored by an annual survey of members.
