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
• 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

Notes to Editors

For more information, please contact the press office at pressoffice@leedsbuildingsociety.co.uk or call 07552959546.

¹The 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

²For the purpose of this ratio, a one-off exceptional item has been excluded.

³The 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%).