Nationwide Building Society posts 30 per cent jump in annual profits
Nationwide Building Society has posted a 30 per cent jump in annual profits after an “outstanding” year that saw it complete the takeover of Virgin Money.
The mutual reported pre-tax profits of £2.3 billion for the year to March 31, up from £1.8 billion the previous year. The group also paid out a record £2.8 billion to members in rewards. Nationwide Building Society also said its bank branches are “thriving” with more customers coming through the doors over the past year as rival banks slash their high street network.
The building society has pledged to keep all of its nearly 700 branches open until at least the start of 2028.
New data from the group revealed that nearly 200,000 more customers used its branches in the financial year to the end of March, compared with the prior year.
Muir Mathieson, Nationwide’s chief financial officer, told the PA news agency: “The branches are thriving.
“We’re seeing the number of people going into branches going up, and we think part of that (increase) is that there are fewer branches on the high street now that our competitors have closed theirs.”
Nationwide has the second-largest branch network in the UK, behind Lloyds Banking Group.
But Lloyds has been making sweeping cuts to its network – with 136 branches going over the next year.
Others have been drastically trimming their network, such as Santander announcing in March it would be closing more than a fifth of its high street branches, bringing it down to 349 across Britain.
The banks say they are adapting to meet the behaviours of their customers, who increasingly want to do banking on their phones or online and are decreasingly using their high street sites.
But Nationwide suggested that UK consumers have been switching their bank to Nationwide so that they can make use of in-person services.
Customers want face-to-face contact particularly if they have concerns about fraud, or if they want reassurance about a specific process or account, Mr Mathieson said.
“Interestingly, we get larger Isa balances when people open them in a branch than when they do it online,” he told PA, indicating people feel more comfortable handling bigger sums of money in a branch.
About 5.7 million customers visited a branch at least once during the year.