Building society hails strong performance against challenging backdrop

Tipton & Coseley Building Society has said 2022 was another successful year in the face of financial markets turmoil arising from the Government’s mini budget in September, and a more challenging economy.

The society achieved mortgage book growth of 6.8%, with gross mortgage lending reaching £108m, its second highest year following 2021’s record.

With borrowers seeing increasing costs for mortgages because of increases in bank rate, and with market expectations of further increases to come, the society said it was able to lessen the impact on borrowers through restricting increases in its standard variable mortgage rate to 2.35% between December 2021 and the end of 2022 compared to a 3.4% increase in bank rate.

During the year, savings members benefited from significant increases to variable savings rates which resulted in the Society attracting £33m in new savings balances from both existing and new members.  On average, savings customers benefited from savings rates 0.62% above market average rates.

Total retail savings balances increased to £416m, profit before tax was £4.8m, and total assets increased past the half a billion mark to finish at £540m.

Richard Newton, the Tipton’s chief executive, said: “My heartfelt thanks go to my colleagues for their commitment to the society; they’ve played a vital role in our successful year, delivering great service to members alongside dealing with multiple bank rate changes, each of which results in significant additional administrative work.

“Whilst the economic conditions are likely to become more challenging during the year ahead we will remain focused on delivering on our principal purpose of helping members to own a home at all stages of life, and to help them save for the future with a safe and secure home for their savings.”