Mortgage lending at Newcastle Building Society has surpassed £1bn, new results for the organisation show.
The North Tyneside-based mutual said it had weathered many market challenges in 2022 and its focus on lending to first time buyers with typically smaller deposits had helped it increase net core residential lending to £586m, up from £330m the year before. Chief executive Andrew Haigh described a "robust" set of results in which the society had demonstrated its resilience.
Newcastle Building Society's "community branch model" - a strategy to bring financial services back to high streets that are underserved - was said to have been proven further during the year. The branches are typically shared with other community services such as libraries and the society now operates several locations in Knaresborough and Hawes in North Yorkshire, Yarm in Stockton-on-Tees and Wooler in Northumberland. There are also plans for a similar Tynemouth branch, due to open next year.
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During the year, more than £94m of funds were invested for members through the society's advice subsidiary, Newcastle Financial Advisers Limited. Meanwhile overall operating profit increased from £28.5m to £30.5m.
Speaking to BusinessLive, Mr Haigh said the £1.1bn of gross mortgage lending milestone was evidence of the society's continued progress. He said: "It's getting out there and making sure the offers we've got are appropriate to what the market needs, and just continuing to grow. That scale in the organisation helps us in so many ways.
"It's been really pleasing to see progress year-on-year and we're ambitious to keep that momentum going."
In results posted to the London Stock Exchange, Mr Haigh said the end of 2022 brought multiple market challenges in the shape of the Ukraine conflict, cost-of-living pressures and political change and policy reversal causing uncertainty in financial markets.
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He added: "We may well see further rate rises coming and all of that makes for a challenging environment for people. I think as a building society what we're really keen to do is to make sure we're doing everything we can to support people through that period. And that includes a whole range of things we can do.
"First of all, there is being accessible and making sure we give consistently good rates - we're really pleased with the amount of interest we've paid out to customers above the average rate - and its also important to be present in the community and keeping financial advice on the high street for ordinary people.
"We want to find ways to make branches possible because in times like these, we know that people want to be able to come in and talk to somebody they trust. More generally, where people are facing problems with budgeting and mortgage payments, we're putting things in place to help - for example, we've launched a scheme with Citizens Advice Gateshead, which is open to members wherever they are in the country."
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