Leeds Building Society retains "strong" position and pushes forward with new office plans

A Yorkshire building society has today announced that it has retained its “strong” capital position throughout lockdown and is pushing forward with its expansion plans.

Leeds Building Society reported profitability for the past six months was £32.6m, compared to £49.4m in 2019 - a drop of more than £16m.

However, it also saw cost to income and cost to mean asset ratios of 52.5 per cent and 0.47 percent respectively, which it says “remain among the best in the sector”.

The pandemic has not set back the society’s plans to improve its environmental sustainability and future-proof lending systems - fitting out is ongoing at the new head office in Leeds city centre in readiness for its scheduled opening next spring.

Richard Fearon, CEO of Leeds Building Society, commented: “In the face of their own personal challenges, colleagues have demonstrated resilience, innovation and teamwork at pace to overcome each practical and logistical test as it’s arisen, from making all our premises COVID Secure to enabling a greater proportion of office-based colleagues to work from home.

“Multiple specialists worked together to swiftly create a new mortgage payment holiday process and self-service online functionality, backed by increased capacity in Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

“Meanwhile branch teams maintained essential financial services on the high street and also joined colleagues from across the business to staff up a “virtual” contact centre dealing with soaring call numbers from members worried about the effects of the pandemic.”

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