Digital connectivity is going to be key as the East of England begins to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, according to a leading regional banker.

Matt Hubbard, who is Lloyds Banking Group’s ambassador for the East of England, said the need for connectivity for businesses and individuals had been underlined by the pandemic, which has led to home working on a mass scale.

This has exposed the region’s “digital divide” and infrastructure issues, which must be addressed to enable it to power out of its economic slump, he said.

“Covid has been a catalyst for change and has speeded that up. One of the things it’s speeded up has been the digital channel for people to do business and for supply chains to work and do business together,” he said. “For the East of England that’s of course another challenge.”

Mr Hubbard — who lives in Ufford near the Suffolk coast — explained how his own experience reflected that of many who live and work in a largely rural region.

“If I go into Woodbridge all the bars on my phone die,” he said. “For businesses to compete and businesses to succeed they need digital connectivity.”

He added: “There’s provision of digital connectivity. There’s also helping everybody to have the skills to be able to interact and utilise digital platforms in the best way possible.”

During the crisis, adaptability has become the watchword for businesses which have been forced to think deeply about what they do and why, said the banker.

“I think what it has done is made businesses step back and consider who their client base is.”

The crisis had opened up opportunities to approach business in a different way with the locations of company workforces now a more fluid factor — which could potentially benefit East Anglia and some of its London commute workers, he said. Work locations may well change as a result, he predicted.

He stressed the importance of stepping back from businesses and forming a strategy. Firms needed to consider this in terms of long-term sustainability, he said.

For the region’s important food and agriculture sector there needed to be a joined up approach to the “still evolving” issue, with the agricultural sector, the wider business sector, supply chain, energy providers, companies, government and academics all working together.

“My own thoughts are that I think it will need some bold moves to move the broader sustainability forward,” he said.

But reaching a Brexit deal had provided some certainty and stability for businesses to build on, he added.

So far, Lloyds Banking Group has given out more than £12bn in loans through government coronavirus support schemes to more than 300,000 UK businesses. The Bounce Back Loan Scheme and Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme are replaced by a Recovery Loan Scheme offering loans of £25,000 to £10m until the end of the year, with an 80% government guarantee.

“We don’t know what the second half of the year will bring. I think what we have done is to be there by the side of all sectors in order to engage and support. We are there for the long term with clients and of course this crisis has been huge absolutely huge but it’s not the first financial crisis we have had to work through,” said Mr Hubbard.