Coventry Building Society grows savings and mortgage business

Coventry Building Society issued its interim numbers for the six months to 30 June on Friday, reporting record mortgage performance - mortgage assets were up 9% on June 2015 following advances of £4.8bn and net lending of £2.0bn for the first half of 2016.

The board said market share of net lending for the five months to May 2016 was 13%.

It also saw significant growth in savings, with deposit balances up 12% on June 2015 and balances having increased by £1.6bn in the first half of the year, taking the society's overall savings deposits to a record £26.9bn.

Savings growth was nearly double that of the market for the five months to May 2016, with Coventry Building Society accounting for over 27% of Cash ISA market growth since June 2015.

Statutory profit before tax increased by 10% to £110.0m, from £100.4m at the same time last year.

Coventry’s cost to mean asset ratio maintained was at 0.42%, with the board claiming it to be the lowest reported by a UK building society.

The society's impairment charges totalled £0.3m for the period on mortgage assets of £31.4 billion, and loans where arrears were greater than 2.5% of the balance were 0.23%.

Its Common Equity Tier 1 ratio was 30.4%, compared with 27.9% a year ago.

“I am particularly proud of the record growth in savings we've achieved,” said chief executive Mark Parsons.

“This reflects our competitive pricing, shown by our average savings rate in the first five months of 2016 being 1.91% compared to a market average of 1.02%.

“It also reflects our transparency, for example in helpfully explaining the changing savings landscape to new and existing members, for which we were singled out by consumer organisation Savings Champion earlier in the year,” Parsons added.