Secure Trust Bank‘s chief executive has described stamp duty on share purchases as the ‘biggest handbrake’ on the business, calling on the government to scrap the 0.5 per cent levy to encourage retail investors back into the London market. Ian Corfield made the remarks as Secure Trust posted a £31.3m profit for the first half of the year, up 9.4 per cent, excluding an £11.9m gain from the sale of its vehicle finance portfolio.
Corfield told City AM that one of the firm’s ‘biggest challenges is trying to generate liquidity into the stock’. He said the tax on buying shares was a ‘blocker for retail investors’ and that boosting retail investment would be ‘key’ for UK wealth generation. Secure Trust is listed on London’s main market with a valuation of around £300m, and its stock has risen around 19 per cent over five years to 1,617.60p.
Secure Trust Bank stamp duty pressure on Healey
Corfield’s comments arrive at a pointed moment for the new government. John Healey, who took over as Chancellor after Andy Burnham moved into Downing Street, is now facing pressure to go further on London’s liquidity problems than his predecessor managed. Rachel Reeves, in her 2025 Budget, introduced a three-year stamp duty holiday for new listings, but the concession has failed to win over some of the market’s most sought-after prospects. The boss of banking software firm Thought Machine previously told City AM that Reeves’s changes were not ‘big enough to really change anybody’s mind either for or against’.
Corfield’s position in this debate carries some political weight, though not without complication. He spent five months as the Treasury’s director of investment after Labour came to power in 2024, before stepping down. The appointment drew immediate criticism: the BBC reported that shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt accused Labour of ‘cronyism’ after a party donor was handed a senior civil service role at the Treasury, a charge directed squarely at Corfield’s appointment given his history as a Labour donor.
Windfall tax threat and the banking surcharge
The wider banking sector is also contending with calls for a fresh windfall tax on the industry’s profits. Campaigners have suggested a £19bn windfall tax could be raised from Natwest, Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC alone, following a period of strong earnings across the sector. Corfield was direct in his opposition. ‘Hiking tax on banks would be “inappropriate”,’ he said, adding: ‘Ultimately interest rates go up and down, I suspect when we’re in a different interest rate environment, we won’t be talking about tax cuts for those banks.’
Secure Trust itself sits below the threshold for the three per cent banking surcharge on corporation tax, which applies to profits above £100m, so the bank does not currently pay it. That distinction matters as the debate over taxing the sector intensifies.
On the balance sheet, the group’s loan book expanded 4.9 per cent in the first half to £3.5bn, driven by its retail finance and business finance divisions. Its CET1 ratio, a measure of financial strength, rose from 12.9 per cent to 14.3 per cent, freeing up additional capital. The bank completed the first tranche of a £10m buyback programme and increased its dividend by 5.1 per cent to 12.4p per share.
There is one significant liability to manage. Secure Trust has set aside £21m in provisions under the Financial Conduct Authority’s redress scheme covering undisclosed commission arrangements in the motor finance market, a liability that will weigh on the second half.
Corfield said the bank would ‘remain a simplified business focused on retail finance and business finance’, and ruled out any dramatic change of direction: ‘You’re not going to see me standing up saying we’re making some leap into the unknown.’
