Leeds Building Society doubles its share of mortgage lending market

Leeds Building Society has increased pre-tax profit by 13% to £30.6m and doubled its share of the residential lending market.

Net residential lending was 26% higher at £423m, and the building society say they want to increase it further this year using the Government’s Funding for Lending scheme.

Savings balances grew to a record £8.3bn as the mutual attracted 39,000 new members, taking membership to a record 703,000.

Chief executive, Peter Hill, said: “Leeds Building Society continues to provide security and value to its savers and support home ownership. I am also delighted that our mutual model has great appeal and we now have more members than at any time in our history.

“New loans rose to £921m, which continues our commitment to the mortgage market, following our strong performance throughout 2012. We have particular expertise in the first-time-buyer (FTB) sector and 30% of our lending, over £280m of completions, has helped almost 3,000 members to purchase their first home.”

He added: “Our successful savings strategy has enabled us to reduce our wholesale funding ratio to 17.4% (19.0%, 30 June 2012). Whilst members’ deposits remain the major component of our traditional building society business, we continue to benefit from access to diverse sources of funding and successfully completed our debut public securitisation in July 2013, raising £300m. We also continue to utilise the Funding for Lending Scheme to support our mortgage lending aspirations and have now drawn a total of £250m.”