Bradford-based Yorkshire Building Society’s recent interim results showed the member-owned mutual’s pre-tax profit fell to £76.5 million in the six months to June 30 from £88.6 million in the same period last year.

The UK’s second largest building society said it opened 84,529 new savings accounts and increased its savings balances to £30.3 billion.

Th mutual increased total mortgage balances to £37.9 billion and achieved gross lending of £4 billion in the period.

The Yorkshire increased its total asset base to £43.5 billion.

Yorkshire Building Society CEO Mike Regnier said: “I’m pleased to announce the Society has made a strong start to 2019.

“We have continued to focus on our core purpose of helping people to secure and maintain a place they call home, to build financial resilience and to do so in a way that maintains the Society’s long-term financial stability.

“We’ve been doing this for 150 years, but it’s particularly important at a time when many people are facing very real challenges such as housing affordability, a decade of low interest rates in the savings market and passing wealth between generations.

“Our robust profits and strong financial health are a reflection of our disciplined approach, which enables us to deliver the excellent service our members rightly expect, as well as the flexible, competitive products which enable our members achieve their financial goals.

“We have continued to lower our costs to ensure we’re giving members good value for money, resulting in a reduction in our underlying management expenditure.

“We’ll continue to focus on enhancing our digital capabilities.

“We’re improving the digital services we offer members as well as putting ourselves in a good position to ensure we’re able to maximise the opportunities offered by advances in technology, including Open Banking.”