World’s oldest building society celebrates record results

The world’s oldest remaining building society has posted record results for the last financial year.

Scottish Building Society, established in 1848, has seen its balance sheet grow by nearly 40% in the last two years, leading to a pre-tax profit of £2.4 million and mortgage assets worth £454 million for the financial year ending January 31 2022.

Chief executive Paul Denton praised staff for their “immense work” during the pandemic as one of the reasons the mutual has performed strongly.

“It has been without doubt two enormously difficult years from an economic and operational perspective, but our staff have delivered outstanding results despite these major challenges,” he said.

“Unlike retail banks who are moving out of towns and cities across the country, we are working harder than ever to provide for our members – be that through online or in-person banking.

“When many of our competitors sought to save money by cutting services, we were looking for ways to help our members by offering compelling interest rates for savers and have now helped a record number of people own their own home.”

The society, which only offers savings and mortgage accounts, also put down the record growth to customers wanting “value and purpose” from their accounts.

Mr Denton said that “despite the historic low base rate, we have continued to pay savings rates above the market average, whilst our income has benefitted by growing our mortgage balances more than 36% in the last two years”.

He added: “We are now helping more members buy their homes than ever before, which is something we are incredibly proud of in today’s fierce mortgage market.

“As a mutual, unlike the high street banks, we do not have shareholders so all profits are reinvested into the business, in areas such as in new digital technologies, improving our member experience and increasing our capital base to support future growth.”