Co-op Bank boss says lender ‘making progress’
THE Co-operative Bank says it is making progress in its turnaround plan, as it closes branches and outsources operations to become more efficient.
The troubled Manchester-based lender said in a third quarter trading update that it is starting to hold its own in the competitive mortgage market, while its current accounts business remained “stable” during the period.
The bank said mortgage origination is recovering to required levels with completions for the nine months to 30 September 2015 totalling £1.81bn. Redemptions were £1.76bn and were “slightly higher than planned” during the period though, mainly due to a number of customers on long term, low fixed rate mortgages maturing onto SVR and subsequently remortgaging with other lenders.
It said a deal with outsourced business service provider Capita for its mortgage applications, which began on August 1, is going to plan, while 57 branches have been closed so far this year.
Chief executive Niall Booker said: “We have continued to make steady progress in our plan to turnaround the bank during the third quarter of this year. The second securitisation of part of the Optimum portfolio was another key milestone in building capital resilience and we have met our capital commitment for 2015.
“Progress has also been made in delivering the IT transformation and resilience required to address the historic under investment in systems and processes and meet threshold conditions. Encouragingly, the performance of the core bank continues to improve as we become a more competitive provider in the marketplace.
“In addition, our customer relationship metrics are on track reflecting superior service levels being delivered in our contact centres and branches which have helped with our brand development. Colleague engagement scores have also seen significant improvement giving some indication that our cultural change programme is gaining traction.
“Notwithstanding the progress noted above, the Bank remains exposed to external macroeconomic conditions and there is still considerable work ahead to fully implement the turnaround plan.”
