The building society — which changed its name from Ipswich Building Society during this period — saw pre-tax profits of £2.9m for the year ending 30 November 2021, up from £1.9m the year before.

These increased profits were driven by an 8% growth in the society’s mortgage book, which stood at £615m at the end of the year, compared to £568m the year before.  Suffolk BS saw £175m of mortgage completions during this 12-month period, up from £123m the year before.

The building society said this growth was significantly ahead of its lending plans, and was driven by the stamp duty holiday, record  low interest rates and the ‘race for space’ in response to more hybrid working arrangements as a result of the pandemic.

Suffolk Building Society said it has also benefited from targeting more niche mortgage markets and building intermediary relationships with a renewed investment in its business development team.  Over this financial year the Society said that 94% of its completed mortgage business was via mortgage intermediaries.

During the year the Society expanded its product offering with a return to 90% Loan To Value (LTV) mortgages and the reintroduction of shared ownership.

This sits alongside £22m of self-build lending and increasing the maximum loan size to £1m for 80% LTV products.

During its 2021 financial year, the Society processed 1,159 applications resulting in 818 completions for the year with an average loan size of £214,000. The Society’s also saw a £23.5m growth in its retail savings business.

Suffolk Building Society chairman Alan Harris says: “We’ve had another year of strong mortgage performance which was indeed assisted by the buoyant property market..

“Looking forward, intermediaries will be pleased to know that we have high expectations for our new mortgage origination platform which will launch later in the year. It will give us flexibility over product features and allow us to be even quicker at reacting to market changes – which, with the possibility of more interest rate rises on the horizon, will further help to increase our operating efficiency.”