Loughborough keeps its customers and grows its assets

Loughborough Building Society has unveiled another set of strong figures for the past financial year with its highest growth in assets for a number of years despite uncertainty in the property market and increases in the base rate.

"The past year has been extremely encouraging," said chief executive, Stephen Peete. "Even though mortgage lending was reined back to accommodate the implementation of a new IT system, we still advanced more than £54 million and grew our assets by 9.2%, the Society's highest annual growth for a number of years. This is largely due to the fact that more customers than ever decided to keep their mortgage with the Loughborough rather than move it elsewhere – quite an achievement in this ever-competitive market place."

Mr Peete said that at the same time investors had continued to support the Society by placing their trust and money in a range of fixed rate and variable products. As a result, savers balances increased by nearly £16 million. Costs were also down with the Society's management expenses ratio dropping to an all time record of just £1.09.

"Our costs are on a firm downward trend and our forecasts for next year already suggest that the figure will fall further, releasing funds that can be reinvested back into the Society for the benefit of our customers," he added.

“Our members know that we provide value for money and I hope that they will vote in larger numbers than ever before at our AGM in February. This year's AGM will, for the first time include a Wealth Management seminar which will incorporate topics such as inheritance tax planning.”

Mr Peete attributes a good deal of the Society's success to its unique people focused character.

"More and more people are turned off by impersonal call centre culture," he continued "and increasingly want a return to dealing with the same person on a face to face basis. We recognize that customers are individuals with different needs and priorities. Our re-branding earlier this year has clearly aimed to reflect this as we strive to be the Society where people really do make the difference."

For further information, visit theloughborough.co.uk.