Leeds Building Society set to create jobs after record lending levels
LEEDS BUILDING SOCIETY, the fifth largest in the UK, has reported strong results after a record year of mortgage lending so far.
The building society is also planning expand with hundreds of jobs over the next few years.
Chief executive Peter Hill said:”For the past 3 years, we’ve created more than 100 jobs each year. This year, we’ve accelerated that. We expect we will need more resources to support that level of growth in 2016.
“We’ve taken two additional offices, with extra space in City Exchange after outgrowing our Albion Street offices, and we expect we will create new jobs to support the economy of Leeds and West Yorkshire.”
The Society reported £55m in pretax profits in the first half of 2015, up from £38.6m for the same period last year.
Total income increased to £108m up from 98.3 last year and the building society now holds assets of £12.7bn, the highest in its 140-year history.
The buy-to-let and first time buyers markets have also contributed to the firm’s strong results.
A new record was set residential lending of £668m (£446m in 2014) and the building society significantly increased their market share in residential mortgage lending as it rose to £1.45bn.
Leeds Building Society chief executive Peter Hill spoke to TheBusinessDesk.com this morning. He said: “What we’ve seen is that lending to owner occupiers and landlords has performed strongly in line with plans.
“But a lot of what has driven our growth in mortgage lending is lending to first time buyers. They now count for 37% of new lending this year, well over a third. That is standard for us, and we’re an active lender on the Help to Buy scheme.
“We saw a big impact on Help to Buy in 2012 when it was implemented, but it is having lesser impact as the market picks up, but we still see it as an important part of the business.
“We’ve got a network of 65 branches, and we have seen the banks making moves to close branches, where they have large networks with thousands of branches.
“We think that our network is small, but perfectly formed, and have no plans to close any, but we do have plans to grow and improve our digital presence.
“Getting a strong digital proposition in place in addition to a branch network is the key to success.
“There will be a more competitive environment in the coming years, we’ve been expecting and preparing for it, but we expect to see strong levels of growth in future years and strong all round performance.
“We’ve had a really strong record of growth over the past four years and so have been able to invest in business and prepare.
“Though there are always questions around UK economy, the Eurozone and instability in Greece, and it’s difficult to plan for all the different scenarios, but we see all of them looking strong for Leeds Building Society.”
