The West Bromwich Building Society, which is celebrating its 170th birthday this year, has declared pre-tax profits of £10.5m for the year to 31 March 2019.

The leap represents a 19 per cent increase on the previous year, and follows a strategic decision to focus on areas in which the board are confident of sustainable returns.

The society’s stated purpose is to support home ownership, and as we reported last July its focus on providing mortgages and savings products to support that aim has seen this area of the business grow year on year. Its recent strategy has been to target borrowers who are less well-served by other mortgage providers. It has been doing this through offering mortgages for self-build projects and mortgages where a sponsor contributes to the monthly repayments. It also reduced its commercial loan book in favour of loans for owner-occupied properties, with first-time buyers now making up 43 per cent of all its new mortgage borrowers.

The West Brom also attracted savers by launching an easy access account, which brought in 3,000 new customers, and by raising its interest rates even more than the Bank of England’s August rise, leading to a three per cent growth in savings balances across its network.

Think Sandwell congratulates the West Brom on its continuing strong performance. For more information on how we can help your business grown, visit our Business Services pages.