Bradford-based Yorkshire Building Society said on Wednesday its saving balances increased by £2.7 billion to £33.4 billion in 2020 as its total assets rose to £47.9 billion from £44.2 billion.
The UK’s third largest building society said its profit before tax slipped to £161.3 million from £167.2 million.
Yorkshire said it sold 72,127 mortgages during the year, including a record 10,854 first-time buyer mortgages, as mortgage balances increased by £800 million to £38.8 billion.
Yorkshire Building Society CEO Mike Regnier said: “Despite the economic challenges and uncertainties, I’m pleased to report Yorkshire Building Society delivered a strong set of 2020 results.
“Our statutory and core profits remain healthy, with plenty of capital and liquidity to weather the external environment and enable us to continue to support our customers.
“We have continued to simplify our business and have, once again, reduced our overall cost base while still growing the Society in terms of both mortgage and savings balances.
“These results would not have been possible without the hard work, dedication and resilience of our colleagues.
“In what has been an incredibly worrying and difficult year for everyone, both personally and professionally, they have supported our customers and each other.
“I’m incredibly grateful to each and every one of them.
“As an organisation which aims to deliver real help and value to its customers, we were very pleased to help a record number of first-time buyers in 2020. We’ll continue to support those buying homes in 2021.
“2020 was clearly another tough year for savers, with the Bank of England rate dropping to a record low of 0.1%.
“To support saving and deliver value to our members, we ensured our rates were higher than the market average throughout 2020.
“We have recently announced an additional £20m in loyalty interest on our savings products for existing members through increased rates.
“The pandemic has brought into sharp focus the challenges many people face around financial wellbeing, employment and skills.
“We have increased the work we are doing to support communities with greater investment and focus on our community programmes.
“At the end of 2020, we committed to enhance existing initiatives and establish new schemes to help people of all ages and stages of life with financial resilience.
“We’re proud to be advancing an agenda which will support people who find themselves in difficult circumstances with financial wellbeing, skills and employability, making a real difference to thousands of lives.”