Net lending was £1.1 billion, also down on the previous year’s £1.6 billion.

The society financed more than 33,000 residential and buy-to-let house purchase mortgages, lending to registered providers of social housing, and via its work with its charity partner End Youth Homelessness (EYH). It has supported and estimated 49,000 people into a home, based on an average household containing 2.4 people.

More than 56,000 new savers opened access accounts, and over 17,000 people started contributing to workplace savings schemes administered by the society. This activity helped to grow total savings balances to £30.7 billion, up from £29.6 billion in 2018.

The society provided higher savings rates at 0.34% above market average resulting in more than £95 million of benefit to members.

Against the backdrop of a competitive market, the mutual recorded a core operating profit of £184.6 million, up from £180.8 million in 2018; and a pre-tax profit of £167.2m, lower than the £192.5 million recorded in 2018.

The Yorkshire’s Net Promoter Score rose to +51 from +41 in 2018.

The society has invested in IT and launched a new mortgage sales and origination platform, simplifying the application process for brokers.

Yorkshire also relaunched its commercial lending business under the YBS brand, inherited from its acquisition of Norwich & Peterborough Building Society in 2011.

Mike Regnier, Yorkshire Building Society Group’s chief executive, said: “I’m pleased to report another good set of results. Not only have we increased our financial strength, to support the long-term sustainability of the society, but we’ve also made excellent progress against our strategic plan.

“The increase in customer satisfaction comes as a result of a lot of hard work by all of our colleagues, supported by investment in improving our services and launching new products specifically designed to help our customers.”

Yorkshire Building Society has assets of £44.3 billion and nearly 3 million customers.