Thursday
1st August
Leeds Building Society 2024
interim financial results
· Building Society celebrates a
record-breaking first half
· Leeds is bucking the trend by
announcing it will open a new branch later this
year
Leeds Building Society broke a
number of records for mortgages, savings
and assets during a strong first six months
of 2024, according to its latest interim financial
results.
The UK's fifth largest building
society today announces that it will buck the market trend by
opening a new high street site and continuing its investment into
its existing national branch network.
2024 H1 key highlights:
· Record-breaking lending
performance: achieving its busiest
single day of mortgage completions contributing to a 37% increase
in total lending to a record £2.6bn (H1 2023: £1.9bn).
· Putting purpose into
action: increasing the number of
first-time buyers being helped onto the housing ladder to
7,800 (H1 2023: 7,700) while welcoming almost 17,500 new borrowers overall
(H1 2023: 15,800).
· Supporting
savers: generating the equivalent of
£135m in benefit for members as a result of paying
0.66%[1] above the market average on
savings rates.
· Record
balances: attracting 47,500 new
savings members, leading to record savings balances of
£22.4bn (Dec 2023:
£20.8bn) and record total assets of
£30.0bn (Dec 2023: £28.1bn).
· New membership
record: attracting thousands of new
customers to push membership to 945,300 (Dec 2023:
919,000).
· Continued financial
strength: achieving an underlying
profit of £86.4m, a significant increase compared to the second
half of last year (H2 2023: £65.3m) and reinforcing its ability to
invest for the future thanks to its mutual model.
· Investing in
service: continuing to improve its
digital offer to customers as well as taking the decision to open
its 51st high street branch later this year, in
Solihull, in the West Midlands.
Richard Fearon, Leeds Building Society Chief Executive
Officer, said:
"I'm delighted with our
record-breaking start to 2024 and our ability to support borrowers
and savers so effectively over the past six months.
"We have continued to put
homeownership within reach of more people, generation after
generation, by helping 7,800 new first-time buyers take their first
steps onto the property ladder whilst also supporting existing
members and investing in the future of our Society.
"As a mutual we are only ever as
strong as the relationship we hold with our members, and we have
achieved some significant milestones that reflect their enduring
loyalty.
"I'm confident we're in a great
position to invest in the future given our record growth in
lending, savings balances and overall membership.
"I am delighted that we'll be
opening a new high street branch in Solihull in the coming months
to expand our national branch network and allow us to reach more
people. This complements the great strides we have made in
improving our digital offering over recent years.
"We are on the verge of entering our
150th year as a building society. We are well placed
over the rest of 2024 and into our next 150 years and beyond to
continue making homeownership a reality for more people and
rewarding savers for the trust they put in us."
Maintained strong financial performance
· Leeds
demonstrated its continued financial strength by taking actions that will reduce ongoing payment obligations
and simplify its balance sheet, contributing to one-off costs which
resulted in a statutory profit before tax of £50.5m and underlying
profit of £86.4m (H1 2023: £116.2m, H2
2023: £65.3m).
· Capital
and reserves remain well above the regulatory requirement at
£1.6bn (Dec 2023:
£1.6bn) and the Society retained very strong levels of
liquidity.
·
Cost to income ratio continues
to be among the lowest in the banking and building society sector
at 52.4%[2] (H1
2023: 40.4%) demonstrating a commitment to balancing members' needs
and long-term financial sustainability.
· The
mutual maintained low arrears levels at 0.69%[3] (H1 2023: 0.68%), a testament to the hard work of
its teams to support borrowers facing financial
difficulty.
Supported new and existing borrowers
· Leeds helped almost 500 customers take their first step
towards homeownership with Home Deposit Saver accounts which reward
savers with a £500 bonus after they receive a mortgage
offer.
· The
Society championed would-be first-time buyers by restricting
mortgage lending on holiday lets in parts of North Norfolk and
North Yorkshire with support of the local authorities as part of a
12-month trial to relieve housing pressures.
· Through
investment in its digital capability, Leeds has worked to make
customer and broker journeys easier and is making good progress on
transforming its core IT infrastructure. For example, since it
launched its new online ISA application journey earlier this year,
conversation rates increased by over 70% (May 2024 compared with
May 2023).
· The
mutual provided excellent service to our members, with overall
satisfaction levels 93% (Dec 2023: 94%).
Supported members and communities when they needed
us
·
Leeds exceeded £1m in
fundraising for Dementia UK, concluding the four-year partnership
by smashing the original £0.5m target.
·
The Society announced a new
three-year charity partnership with the UK's largest children's
charity Barnardo's, to build brighter futures for care-experienced
young people.
·
The mutual stood by its members
by establishing a significant voluntary financial support scheme
for customers impacted by the 2022 collapse of Philips Trust
Corporation.
·
The building society began work
with Keepmoat Homes on their Future Homes project to factor in the
reduced monthly outgoings associated with living in a greener home
into mortgage affordability calculations.
Ends
Footnotes
[1] The
Society paid an average of 3.73% to our savers compared to the Rest
of Market average of 3.07%, which equates to an annual benefit to
our savers of £135m. Source: CACI's CSDB, Stock, June 2023 to May
2024, latest data available. CACI is an independent company that
provides financial benchmarking data of the retail cash savings
market.
[2] For the
purpose of this ratio, a one-off exceptional item has been
excluded.
[3]
The proportion of balances greater than 1.5% in
arrears has remained stable in the first half of the year at 0.69%
(December 2023: 0.68%).
Key
information from the Society's Group Interim Results to 30
June 2024 is attached.
For
the Society's Interim Financial Report, follow the
link:
http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/6798Y_1-2024-7-31.pdf
Notes to Editors
For more information, please contact
the press office at pressoffice@leedsbuildingsociety.co.uk
or call 07552
959546.
About Leeds Building Society
· Leeds
Building Society is the UK's fifth-largest Building
Society.
· The
Society held assets of £30bn and had a total membership of 945,300
on 30 June 2024
· We
continue to do today what we were set up to do in 1875 - help
people save money and buy their own home. We operate as a mutual,
developing and innovating our product range and service offer to
help our 945,300 members achieve their financial goals.
· For
more on what we do and how we help our members, visit the
Leeds
Building Society website.
· As of
30 June 2024, we employed over 1,800 colleagues, with a head office
in the centre of Leeds, a customer contact centre in Newcastle, and
a network of 50 branches across the UK.
· Our
purpose is putting home ownership within reach of more people,
generation after generation. Since 2020 we have helped over 70,000
first time buyers join the housing ladder.
· We are
committed to the orderly transition to a greener, net zero economy
by 2050 and have set a second ambitious target to reduce our scope
1 and 2 location-based emissions by 60% by 2030, which aligns with
the UK Government's net zero commitments.
· Find
out more about the impact of our actions:
2023 Purpose Impact Report (a
copy is also available on the
Leeds Building Society website).
· The
Society has been a Living Wage employer since 2019.
· The
Society won the title of Best Shared Ownership Mortgage Lender in
the 2024 What Mortgage Awards, its ninth consecutive year of
success in this category, won "First time Mortgage Buyers' Choice"
at the 2023 Moneyfacts Consumer Awards, and was named as the winner
of the "Leading With Purpose Award" at the 2023 Business Culture
Awards.
