Chairman's AGM Statement

Woolwich PLC
12 April 2000


ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 

At the Annual General Meeting of Woolwich plc, held today, the chairman, Sir
Brian Jenkins said:

'So far this year the mortgage market has been buoyant and I am pleased to say
that our performance has been strong, with net lending in particular ahead of
last year's figures. However, the competitive pressures across all our
businesses remain and, as expected, pressure on margins continues. Overall
though, the volumes of business on both sides of our book are good.

'During 2000 a number of our strategic developments will come on stream. With
some 80,000 customers already on board, we will be scaling up Open Plan
recruitment to take customer numbers to our target of half a million by the
end of the year. This will of course mean an increasing momentum in the rate
of customer take-on from the levels currently being achieved and a very
significant increase in Open Plan customers in the second half of the year. 

'We will also be announcing additional facilities and products for the Open
Plan service, broadening the offering and improving access to the service to
give greater integration benefits to the customer while increasing product
penetration. At the same time we will be introducing across the whole business
a number of developments aimed at improving process efficiency in the back
office. These include a computerised application system for all products to
minimise form filling, and restructuring branches to promote the use of the
internet and digital TV. Behind the scenes we will increase our capacity to
deal with the additional load of internet and telephone contact. Finally, GHL
continues to make good progress and is due to add the servicing of Woolwich
mortgages to the processing of new business by the end of the first half.

'All of these developments will place a burden of additional investment and
running costs upon us in 2000 and we have been making this spend and this
investment in the infrastructure throughout the first months of the year. 
This  expenditure is in line with our declared strategy.  The revenues that
will be generated from the resulting deeper customer relationships however
will prove to be the sustainable profit base for the future.'