It is unlikely he was any under illusions when he arrived, but even if he was Charlie Nunn now knows for sure: running our biggest savings and loans bank is hard yards.
The market power that comes with being the biggest player also comes with a huge amount of social responsibility.
Lloyds Bank can’t be seen to chuck struggling customers under metaphorical buses in search of shareholder value.
On this Nunn speaks well. He does an awfully good impression of a modern, thinking, banker. Maybe it’s not an impression.
Like his predecessor Antonio Horta-Osorio, one of his problems remains a stubbornly inactive share price.
Lloyds shares have gone from nothing much to nowhere in five years and there is no particular reason to expect that to change. You might buy a few for your grandchildren. Assuming your expectations for them are low.
Aside from overseeing the nuts and bolts of the bank, Nunn’s plan for growth is to sell wealth management services to a group called the mass affluent.
That’s anyone who earns more than £75,000 or has the same amount to invest.
There are loads of those people, but it’s not obvious why they would choose Lloyds. Most of them are surely savvy enough to have all that sorted already.
Of this plan, Gary Greenwood the banks analyst at Shore Capital, said: “It all sounded very familiar to me, which was basically a case of ‘we’re going to sell more products to the same people and we’re going to use technology to enable that’. I’ve heard that repeatedly over 23 years covering the sector.”
And it hasn’t really happened, is Greenwood’s point. It’s a tough nut for Nunn to crack.
