Record breaking first half at Leeds Building Society with major rise in lending

Leeds Building Society says it broke a number of records for mortgages, savings and assets during a strong first six months of 2024.
Issuing its 2024 interim financial results this morning, it reports 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).
And it increased 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).
Richard Fearon, chief executive officer, said: “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.
“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 pleased 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.”
Over the same period, the building society says it took actions which 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).
It also attracted 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).
And the building society recorded thousands of new customers to push its membership up to 945,300 (Dec 2023: 919,000).
It notes that capital and reserves remain well above the regulatory requirement at £1.6bn (Dec 2023: £1.6bn) and the building society retained very strong levels of liquidity.