For banks
You meet them early. By the time growth appears in the account, the next banking relationship may already have been chosen.
Start-up propositions are often reported through accounts opened and businesses supported. The commercial relationship is read through balances and transactions. The first measures activity before commercial capability is visible; the second changes after growth has already happened. By then, the customer may already have chosen where its next lending, foreign-exchange and corporate-banking needs will sit.
The timing problem
By the time the account moves, the customer may already have chosen another provider.
A business can build commercial capability several quarters before it appears in balances, borrowing or transaction volume. Account systems read those signals. They do not show the capability being built beforehand.
That gap is a relationship opportunity. It is when a customer may be deciding who will handle its next lending, foreign-exchange or corporate-banking needs. The account may not show the decision until after it has been made.
Measured twice a year, the capability line becomes visible while there is still time to review the relationship.
Illustrative only; not observed data. Both lines are indexed 0–100.
Two buyers, one instrument
The same measurement gap appears on two sides of the bank.
Accelerators, hubs and partnerships
Often funded through grant or marketing budgets and reported through participation. The team needs per-company evidence of movement before the next budget round. This side needs the quarterly report.
Business and commercial banking
Managers may cover hundreds of accounts, and customer growth is often visible through account behaviour after it has happened. This side needs an indication of which customers merit scarce attention and what support may be relevant next.
The pilot can start on the programme side, where the reporting need is funded and immediate. The relationship side is the longer-term application.
The boundary on credit use
Growth Score is not a credit signal and must not be used as one.
Growth Score does not assess creditworthiness or feed into lending decisions. It is not an input to affordability, pricing or risk models.
This boundary is stated in the contract. The method, arithmetic and conformance vectors are published so a risk function can inspect the instrument before a pilot.
A result that survives a risk review
Anything a customer shows you can be confirmed against the register: real, dated, produced by a stated method version. Verification returns no company data, so it raises no new data protection question.
- A dated, versioned result rather than an undated figure of unknown origin
- The evidence level stated, so self-assessed is never presented as verified
- Nothing personal or commercial is disclosed by the check itself
- Auditable after the fact, which is what a risk function will ask for
A reference confirms four things only: that the result is real, which method version produced it, when it was taken and whether it is still current, and its evidence level. Never the score, the company name or any answer. How the register works. Verification is specified and not yet live
The line you report against
Band movement in both directions.
Four bands are published with their ranges: Forming 0–39, Developing 40–59, Established 60–79 and Durable 80–100. The report shows how many moved up, stayed in the same band or moved down.
Downward movement is reported alongside upward movement. It gives a portfolio holder an early signal for discussion and keeps the report from presenting progress as one-directional.
Growth Score is not a credit signal or an input to lending, pricing or eligibility decisions. It should not be used as a covenant, limit or review metric.
What each company receives
A ten-page report showing where the business stands, what capability it can evidence against current momentum, the stage and underlying cause indicated by the result, and the first three actions to take.
Free to the company, whether or not it later speaks to the bank. The same result aggregates into institutional reporting, giving both audiences a common record rather than separate views that can diverge.
What changes in the job
- Relationship managers have a reason to call: a specific finding about the customer's business, rather than a generic product conversation
- Scarce RM time can be directed towards customers building capability, instead of distributed evenly across the book
- Programme teams get a board-level view of movement per member, refreshed quarterly, alongside attendance and participation
- A change in commercial capability can prompt an earlier relationship review, before it appears in account behaviour. It is not a churn prediction
- SME commitments can be reported through a dated capability measure, alongside existing activity and financial measures
The payoff
What becomes available after one measurement cycle.
| Measure | Current view | After one cycle |
|---|---|---|
| Which programme members are building commercial capability | Not visible in account data until later | A dated position per member, refreshed each cycle |
| Evidence of programme movement | Attendance and satisfaction, with limited evidence of capability movement | Movement per company from baseline to endline |
| What a scaling customer may need next | Usually discovered in conversation, if at all | An indicated gap recorded before account activity shows it |
| The board answer on the SME commitment | Aggregate lifetime totals | A quarterly report per cohort, comparable over time |
The deployment can carry the bank's brand or Growth Score's. It runs the same published method and declares conformance on the same fixed path as other implementations. Co-branding does not create a private variant.