Partner Article

Newcastle Building Society prospers

Only last week we reported that the Newcastle Building Society has created 160 new jobs in the first half of the year. Thanks to two new contracts and ‘robust’ half-year results it now plans to fill 120 more vacancies at its new office base at Cobalt Business Park.

The Society has seen a year-on-year savings balance increase of £222m, with total assets up by more than seven per cent. Newcastle Strategic Solutions, which offers core skills to other institutions, continued to be successful and contributed to ‘other income’ of £11m, up 37% year on year.

Chief executive Colin Seccombe says: “Our half year results more than meet our forecasts and, allowing for investment in Cobalt and credit crunch issues, our underlying profit has increased by 11%. This puts us on a firm footing for the future and our new Cobalt site enables us to improve customer service, widen the facilities for all our staff, and, importantly, boost the local economy.”

In recent reviews by two major credit ratings agencies, Newcastle Building Society’s outlook as ‘stable’ has been affirmed.

Seccombe says: “To maintain our high quality rating demonstrates market confidence in our business model and is testimony to the fact that we adopt a cautious funding strategy and that we will not take on high risk borrowers. This has always been, and will continue to be, our approach.

“The market leading rates that our mutual status allows us to offer have also helped to attract savings from both new and existing members, and the increase of 8% in our total savings balance this year has considerably exceeded our expectations.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .