Principality lending to home owners exceeds £5 billion

Principality Building Society has announced that its lending to home owners has exceeded £5 billion for the first time.

The increase in mortgage lending has been strengthened by Wales’ largest building society helping more than 1,100 first-time buyers get on to the property ladder in the first six months of this year.

Graeme Yorston, Group Chief Executive of Principality Building Society, said: “I am delighted to report another very strong set of results for the Principality Group for the first six months of 2015, where we have seen our strategy of growing the core business continuing to deliver.

“In the first half of the year we have once again grown our lending to customers buying their own home, contributing to the overall increase in lending to home owners which now exceeds £5bn for the first time in the Society’s 155 year history.

“Crucial to this and to the market as a whole, has been lending to first-time buyers where we have consistently supported people onto the housing ladder.

“As house prices have stabilised and low interest rates have been seen across the market a greater level of affordability has returned, enabling us to help over 1,100 first-time buyers move into their first home in the first six months of the year.”

The half-year results also show that pre-tax profits increased by £2.7 million to £23.2m.

Mr Yorston added: “The group’s trading performance has been strong in the first half of the year. Excluding the impact of the pension changes last year’s, profit before tax has increased by £2.7m. Our profit for the first six months of the year has meant that we have been able to continue to grow our capital base, which provides vital protection for our members from any severe market downturns, as well as providing us with important funding for our investment programme as we seek to transform our business into an organisation that will be relevant for both current and future members.”

Looking ahead to the next six months, he added: “We still face many global uncertainties, as well as economic concerns in Europe, which have not completely gone away, and whilst we have no direct exposure we have to be mindful of the wider impact of these on the UK economy and the challenges that they may uncover along the way.

“Principality is well-placed to deal with these issues and I am very confident in a continuing bright future for the organisation as we remain focussed on delivering strong results backed up with excellent service and an investment programme in the business that will ensure that it is relevant now and for many years to come.”