Coventry Building Society says its pre-tax profit jumped 59% to £371m last year, as rising interest rates and a “volatile” mortgage market saw the mutual’s home loans teams post their “busiest days on record”.
The firm’s mortgage assets grew 3% to £48bn compared to the year before.
It points out that mortgage asset growth was 6% in the first half of last year, with the second half marked by rising home loan rates following the mini-Budget.
It says “the society’s mortgage teams experienced some of the busiest days on record” during the year, responding to 278,000 broker queries and answering 450,000 calls from home loan customers.
Mortgage arrears balances of more than three months were unchanged at 0.17%.
Coventry Building Society chief executive Steve Hughes says: “Our intermediary partners played a critical role in this performance.
“In a year of so much disruption, their advice has never been needed more and we really value the support brokers have given us throughout the year.
“We’ve made a significant investment in our digital infrastructure, including the launch of our digital switching service.
“But the need for a human touch, whether face to face or over the phone, is still very strong.
“Our business development managers, telephone business development managers and intermediary support team have built strong relationships up and down the UK with brokers and their teams and our direct-to-consumer support through our mortgage teams continues to deliver great results.”
The mutual grew its savings balances by 6% to £42.3bn over the year.
