Leeds Building Society punches above its weight

LEEDS Building Society has posted a strong first-half performance with savings balances and new residential loans above market share.

There are now an all-time high of 696,000 members at the UK’s fifth-largest building society, which approved new mortgages worth a total of £769 million, 20 per cent up on a year ago. More than a quarter of those went to first-time buyers.

Chief executive Peter Hill said the strong lending was possible due to the society’s ability to attract retail deposits, which grew by £189m to a record £7.54 billion. He said: “As an independent building society, our members are also the owners. This makes for a very different relationship to that which customers have with their banks.”

Profits for the first half reached £27.1m, up from £26.9m previously. Capital and reserves rose to a record £598m versus £553m in June 2011.

Nationwide and Yorkshire, the UK’s two largest building societies, have similarly announced hefty rises in residential lending. This is in contrast to many state-backed banks, which have come under fire for failing to lend enough to spark economic recovery.