Building society Nationwide yesterday hailed its lending record as annual results revealed how it boosted would-be housebuyers with billions of pounds in mortgage approvals last year.
The group said gross domestic property lending had increased by 17% in the year to April 4, with it providing one-in-five of all new deals for first-time buyers and 15.1% of all UK mortgages.
Chief executive Graham Beale said performance over the last year showed Nationwide was “doing the right thing by its members” as business performance soared.
Income reached £2.5 billion in the 12-month period its highest ever level while pre-tax profit lifted £7 million to £210m after deductions for levies, restructuring costs and accounting movements.
Retail banking brought in £824m, though losses were recorded in the commercial division and head office functions.
Nationwide also revealed that 123,000 people had switched their main banking arrangements to the mutual during the year, but warned of difficult times for commercial landlords.
“The weak economy has continued to undermine the performance of our commercial real estate portfolio, which has been impacted by weak tenant demand,” said Mr Beale.
The society booked an increase in its bad debt provision charges to £493m, from £247m a year earlier.
Nationwide rescued the 144-year-old Dunfermline in 2009, but earlier this month confirmed the Scottish name, which employs around 200 people in its 32 branches in Scotland, would disappear from high streets.
The Nationwide-owned Cheshire and Derbyshire building societies are also to be rebranded. Around half of the three societies’ branches are to be converted from next spring, with the remainder closed or integrated.
Some redundancies will be “necessary”, Nationwide has admitted, but staff will be redeployed wherever possible.
It will retain the Fife mutual’s headquarters at Caledonia House as a customer call centre, increasing the number of staff based there from 250 to around 300.