Lloyds Banking Group plc (LON:LLOY, NYSE:LYG) continues to sit at the centre of the UK banking story as 2025 draws to a close. After a powerful rally this year, the stock is hovering just below its recent highs, backed by a completed £1.7bn share buyback, fresh leadership in its investment arm, and reassuring signals from credit-rating agencies.
Below is a detailed look at today’s share price, the latest news (up to and including 11 December 2025), and what current analysis and forecasts are saying about Lloyds’ outlook.
Lloyds share price today: still near 2025 highs
At the close on 11 December 2025, Lloyds Banking Group shares were trading around 94p in London, with indicative prices on Hargreaves Lansdown showing 93.96p (sell) and 94.00p (buy) for the ordinary 10p shares. [1]
Over the past year the move has been dramatic:
- In 2025, the share price has traded between about 52p and 98p, with a last price of 94.32p in the year-to-date performance table, implying a rise of roughly 75% since the start of the year. [2]
- Over the last 12 months, Alliance News data show Lloyds’ share price up roughly 79%, reinforcing that this has been a breakout year for the UK lender. [3]
From a technical perspective, a key milestone was reached this week:
- On 11 December 2025, MarketBeat reported that Lloyds’ shares crossed above their 200-day moving average, trading as high as 95.54p and last around 94.84p on heavy volume. [4]
For traders, that 200-day moving-average crossover is often seen as a bullish long-term momentum signal – although, of course, it can also be a sign of a mature rally where expectations start running ahead of fundamentals.
Big news this week: buyback done, CIO hired, pensions de-risked
Several corporate developments in the last few days are shaping sentiment around Lloyds.
£1.7bn share buyback completed
On 9 December 2025, Lloyds confirmed it has completed its 2025 share buyback programme, repurchasing 2.20 billion shares for £1.7bn in total. The programme began in late February and was executed by Morgan Stanley. [5]
Buybacks reduce the share count and can boost earnings per share (EPS), which is typically supportive for the share price, especially when a bank is already well-capitalised.
New Chief Investment Officer: Peter Fitzgerald
On 10 December 2025, Lloyds announced the appointment of Peter Fitzgerald as Chief Investment Officer, succeeding Kevin Doran, who will leave the Group early next year. [6]
Fitzgerald joins from Aviva Investors, where he led a team managing over £100bn in multi-asset and macro strategies. The move strengthens the investment expertise behind Lloyds’ wealth and pensions activities, including Scottish Widows, at a time when the bank is trying to deepen fee-based revenues.
£4.8bn of pension liabilities hedged with longevity swaps
Lloyds’ pension trustees have also been busy behind the scenes. In early December, Lloyds Banking Group Pensions Trustees Limited completed three new longevity swap transactions with Rothesay Life, covering about £4.8bn of pension liabilities, supported by reinsurance from major global reinsurers and a Prudential Financial subsidiary. [7]
Longevity swaps transfer the risk of pensioners living longer than expected to insurers and reinsurers. For equity investors, this tends to be a quiet but welcome de-risking step: less balance-sheet uncertainty, more predictable capital.
UK Retail Investment Campaign: Lloyds in a national push to get Britons investing
On 10 December 2025, Lloyds said it had joined 17 other major financial firms to launch the UK Retail Investment Campaign, an industry-wide initiative aimed at improving financial education and nudging households to invest more for the long term. [8]
For Lloyds, the campaign dovetails with its strategy to grow in wealth, investments and pensions, moving beyond simple interest-income banking towards more diversified, fee-based revenues.
AI, blockchain and the future of UK homebuying
In parallel, Lloyds is trying hard not to look like your grandfather’s high-street bank. At a Financial Times event, CEO Charlie Nunn recently argued that tokenised deposits and AI-driven automation could radically streamline the UK homebuying process, cutting out delays and intermediaries. [9]
He likened the potential impact to the smartphone revolution – strong language, but it signals where Lloyds wants investors to look: less “stodgy UK bank”, more “digitally-enabled financial platform” (with a very large mortgage book).
Macro backdrop: a friendlier climate for UK banks
A notable tailwind for Lloyds is a shift in the regulatory and political mood music in Britain:
- The Bank of England has eased bank capital requirements for lenders, cutting the amount of capital they must hold and potentially freeing capacity for lending and shareholder returns. [10]
- At the FT Global Banking Summit, UK banks – including Lloyds – were described as coming “off the naughty step”, with ministers and regulators adopting a more growth-friendly tone after years of post-crisis scepticism. [11]
Less regulatory pressure and moderately lower capital demands can support dividends and buybacks, although investors still need to weigh that against cyclical credit risk and political scrutiny.
Fundamentals: earnings resilience, capital strength and motor finance risks
Q3 2025: solid performance despite motor finance charge
Lloyds’ Q3 2025 interim management statement (for the nine months to 30 September 2025) emphasised:
- Robust financial performance, with strong capital generation driven by income growth and cost control.
- Continued strong asset quality, even after recognising an additional motor finance charge in Q3.
- Strategic progress, including the agreed acquisition of Schroders Personal Wealth to bulk up its wealth management offering. [12]
This message of “resilient but not flashy” has been echoed in recent sell-side commentary, which portrays Lloyds as a fairly predictable barometer of the UK economy. [13]
Fitch: A+ rating, strong asset quality, capital cushions
On 3 December 2025, Fitch Ratings published an updated rating report on Lloyds Banking Group, maintaining an A+ long-term rating with Stable Outlook. [14]
Key points from Fitch’s analysis include:
- Asset quality:
- Impaired loans ratio of 1.8% at end-Q3 2025, slightly above some peers but still low in absolute terms.
- Stage 2 (heightened-risk) loans fell to 9.3% of gross loans, down from 10.4% at end-2024. [15]
- A loan book heavily skewed to UK mortgages (around two-thirds of lending) with relatively low loan-to-value ratios.
- Profitability:
- Operating profit equivalent to about 3.2% of risk-weighted assets in 9M 2025, slightly better than 2024. [16]
- Net interest income supported by higher-rate reinvestment of the structural hedge and 4% loan growth over the period.
- Capital and leverage:
Fitch expects Lloyds to continue distributing excess capital – via dividends and buybacks – while gradually trimming the CET1 ratio towards a 13% target by end-2026. [19]
Motor finance redress: a key overhang
One area of uncertainty is the FCA’s motor finance redress scheme. Fitch notes that Lloyds has already booked around £1.95bn of provisions related to the issue and lifted provisions by about £800m in Q3 2025, but warns the final scheme – expected in early 2026 – could still require additional charges. [20]
RTT News likewise highlights that Lloyds “warned of potential material provision” linked to the FCA’s proposals, even as it raised its underlying net interest income guidance for FY25. [21]
The rating-agency view, though, is that any extra provisions should be absorbable given Lloyds’ strong pre-impairment profits.
Analyst ratings, valuation and share-price forecasts
Equity analyst targets: “Moderate Buy” with upside – but not without debate
MarketBeat’s technical note on the 200-day moving average offers a snapshot of current equity analyst sentiment:
- Across six recent broker ratings, Lloyds carries a “Moderate Buy” consensus, with three Buy and three Hold recommendations.
- The average 12-month price target cited in that piece is 98.50p, slightly above today’s ~94p price. [22]
Separate coverage of Lloyds’ US-listed ADR (NYSE: LYG) similarly shows a Moderate Buy consensus from analysts tracked by MarketBeat, reflecting broadly constructive but not euphoric sentiment. [23]
Recent broker actions have included:
- Jefferies reiterating a Buy rating with a target around 105p. [24]
- Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) bumping its target to 110p with an “outperform” stance. [25]
At those target levels, analysts are effectively signalling modest additional upside rather than a fresh multi-bagger from here.
Valuation: cheap bank or richly-priced recovery?
After such a strong rally, debate is heating up about whether Lloyds is still cheap:
- Morningstar recently put Lloyds on a list of “newly overvalued” stocks, flagging that the market might now be baking in a lot of good news. [26]
- In a separate “Stock of the Week” piece, the same outlet noted that Lloyds is up roughly 77% in 2025, but that “it’s not all good news for investors”, hinting at cyclical and regulatory risks that could bite into future returns. [27]
Put simply: 2025 has already delivered what might normally be several years’ worth of typical bank-stock gains. From here, performance will depend more heavily on credit quality, the ultimate motor finance bill, interest-rate trends and the strength of the UK economy.
Credit-rating view: A+ with Stable Outlook
Alongside Fitch, Scope Ratings has also updated its view on Lloyds, assigning an A+ rating with Stable Outlook. The agency highlights:
- Lloyds’ leading UK retail and SME franchise,
- a resilient earnings record through the cycle, and
- strong capital and liquidity metrics. [28]
When multiple agencies converge on a similar conclusion – solid business model, good capital, manageable risks – it provides a useful counterweight to short-term market nerves around items like motor finance.
Key risks and themes for 2026
Looking beyond today’s headlines, several big themes will drive Lloyds’ share price into 2026:
- UK macro and interest-rate path
Lower rates are a double-edged sword: they can ease credit stress but also compress net interest margins. Fitch still expects Lloyds to hold margins reasonably well, helped by its structural hedge and loan growth. [29] - Motor finance redress scheme
The FCA’s final framework in early 2026 will crystallise how much more Lloyds must pay. Ratings agencies currently assume additional provisions will be manageable, but a materially harsher-than-expected outcome could hit earnings in the short term. [30] - Execution on “digital plus wealth” strategy
Moves such as the Schroders Personal Wealth acquisition, Peter Fitzgerald’s appointment, the UK Retail Investment Campaign and the group’s AI/blockchain initiatives are all about diversifying income and modernising the franchise. The more Lloyds can shift from pure interest income to fee-based, capital-light businesses, the more resilient its earnings could become. [31] - Capital returns vs. capital buffers
The completed £1.7bn buyback – on top of ordinary dividends – shows management’s willingness to hand surplus capital back to shareholders. The balancing act in 2026 will be how far they can push buybacks while still keeping regulators comfortable in an uncertain world. [32]
Bottom line: Lloyds in late-cycle rally mode
As of 11 December 2025, Lloyds Banking Group stock is:
- Trading just below its recent highs,
- Supported by strong capital and solid asset quality,
- Benefiting from a friendlier UK regulatory environment, and
- Leveraging its balance sheet for capital returns, pensions de-risking and digital investment.
At the same time, the shares are no longer obviously “distressed” or “cheap”, and the market is watching closely how the FCA motor finance redress story and UK economic growth play out in 2026.
References
1. www.hl.co.uk, 2. www.intelligentinvestor.com.au, 3. www.sharesmagazine.co.uk, 4. www.marketbeat.com, 5. www.sharesmagazine.co.uk, 6. www.lloydsbankinggroup.com, 7. www.artemis.bm, 8. www.lloydsbankinggroup.com, 9. www.ft.com, 10. www.reuters.com, 11. www.ft.com, 12. www.lloydsbankinggroup.com, 13. www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk, 14. www.lloydsbankinggroup.com, 15. www.lloydsbankinggroup.com, 16. www.lloydsbankinggroup.com, 17. www.lloydsbankinggroup.com, 18. www.lloydsbankinggroup.com, 19. www.lloydsbankinggroup.com, 20. www.lloydsbankinggroup.com, 21. www.rttnews.com, 22. www.marketbeat.com, 23. www.marketbeat.com, 24. www.marketbeat.com, 25. www.marketbeat.com, 26. global.morningstar.com, 27. global.morningstar.com, 28. www.scoperatings.com, 29. www.lloydsbankinggroup.com, 30. www.lloydsbankinggroup.com, 31. www.lloydsbankinggroup.com, 32. www.sharesmagazine.co.uk
