Nottingham Building Society has reported a positive financial performance for the first half of 2024, demonstrating growth in mortgage lending despite a challenging economic environment.
For the period ended 30th June 2024, the society achieved £525.7m in gross new lending, marking a 15% increase from the £457.1m reported in 2023.
Total mortgage assets grew by £600m (8.6%), reaching £3.9bn.
The society also saw an increase in new mortgage customers, rising 12.1% to 4,069 from 3,630 in 2023.
Savings balances increased by £900m to £4bn, a significant uplift from the previous year.
Despite the overall positive performance, Nottingham Building Society reported a decrease in profit.
Underlying profit before tax fell to £9m from £13.7m in 2023, while profit before tax, including expenses associated with the Philips Trust Corporation, dropped to £0.7m from £11.7m.
The underlying net interest margin decreased by 0.13% to 1.87%, and the underlying cost to income ratio rose by 12.2% to 76.6%.
The expected loss coverage ratio decreased by 3 basis points to 15 basis points.
Capital and liquidity ratios remained robust, with a Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio of 14% compared to 16.3% in 2023, a leverage ratio of 5.3% down from 5.9%, and an average Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) of 169.3%, down from 177.3% in 2023.
Customer satisfaction metrics remained strong, with a Trustpilot score of 4.9 and a net promoter score of 61.3%, although this was a decrease from 67% in 2023.
The society recorded 1,200 colleague volunteering hours, up from 817 in 2023.
Sue Hayes, chief executive officer, said: “I am pleased with our financial results for the first six-months in 2024 which generated an underlying profit of £9.0m (2023: £13.7m).
“Following our decision to support members impacted by Philips Trust Corporation through a voluntary support payment, our profit has reduced in the first half of 2024 to a Profit Before Tax (PBT) of £0.7m.
“Our underlying business performance is strong with an 18.6% increase in gross mortgage balances compared with June 2023.
“We achieved significant growth in lending while the overall UK mortgage market grew substantially less.”
She added: “We continue to invest in both our core IT systems and in developing innovation that will improve our mortgage application and credit risk decisioning processes in the future.
“Alongside this, we achieved good growth in our savings balances of 26.9% compared with June 2023.
“We diversified our proposition to offer a variety of attractive products and savings rates to our customers via our branch network and online savings app.
“As interest rates have risen and remained high throughout this year, we have focused on paying savers the best rates we can whilst doing what we need to strengthen the society.
“We paid a total of £71.5m in interest to savers in 2024.
“Looking to the future, we will continue to progress our transformation plans, delivering the great customer service we know our members value whilst continuing to focus on innovation in our products and propositions in order to build a future fit society for our members and brokers.”
