Nationwide Building Society reveals fall in underlying full year profits

Joe Garner, the chief executive, Nationwide Building Society, said that in the last month of the financial year "all our lives had been overshadowed by the coronavirus".

He added: "We have prioritised protecting the health and wellbeing of our colleagues from this terrible disease, supporting those members in financial difficulty, and maintaining essential services. I would like to thank our employees who have gone to extraordinary lengths to serve our members through this time.

"The pandemic has shown how dependent we all are on each other, and how important it is that we work together. Nationwide Building Society is a mutual organisation, founded on the belief that we can achieve more by acting together than we can alone. This principle is guiding our response to the pandemic, where we are doing all we can to protect people's homes and jobs.

"We are helping members in financial difficulty with payment holidays on mortgages and loans and interest-free overdraft periods, and we have promised that no mortgage member will lose their home over the next 12 months due to the impact of the coronavirus.

Mr Garner added: "We've taken steps to protect our employees' physical and mental health so we can maintain essential services to our members, and we've gone a step further and promised that everyone's job is safe in 2020. We are paying our suppliers early, especially smaller ones, to help them stay in business.

"We have also increased our support for charitable partners, like Shelter, to help protect their vital services during the pandemic. We believe that the character of any organisation comes very much to the fore in times like these, and we have been making our decisions very much with this in mind.

"While the coronavirus impacted our profitability in the last few weeks of the year, there was pressure on margins even before it hit. Notwithstanding this, we achieved a great deal during 2019/20. We have record membership and grew the number of people we helped into a home, to save and to manage their money. We achieved our longstanding aim of 10% market share in current accounts.

"We were named Which? Banking Brand of the Year in 2019 for the third year running, were ranked no. 1 for customer satisfaction among our peer group for the eighth year2 and 4th in the all-sector UK Customer Satisfaction index3. We launched a new green agenda, including a £1 billion loan fund, to help make Britain's homes greener. We also delivered £715 million in member financial benefit. In the challenging period ahead, Nationwide will focus on maintaining our financial strength, managing our business sustainably, and prioritising the needs of our members."

Chris Rhodes, the chief financial officer, said Nationwide Building Society, said: "Nationwide ended 2019/20 in a position of financial strength, able to support its members whilst continuing to invest for the future. We ended the year with a strong capital position with a UK leverage ratio of 4.7% (2019: 4.9%), above our target of at least 4.5%.

"Underlying profit of £469 million (2019: £788 million) reflected lower income, our technology investment, higher PPI provisions, and a £101 million financial impact from an increase in expected credit losses resulting from payment holidays and the economic outlook.

"In the medium-term the society will focus on maintaining its strong capital and liquidity position through the economic cycle, enabling us to continue to provide competitive products and excellent service for our members."

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor