Nottingham Building Society has reported total assets of £3.8bn and that its gross mortgage lending was in excess of £350m in 2019.

The society revealed this was a planned reduction in gross mortgage lending, having also completed a project to replace its digital offering for online savers and mortgage brokers.

The Nottingham also announced it welcomed 20,000 new members last year and that its branch savings climbed by 2% to £2.4bn – with interest paid to savers also up 12.8%.

The Nottingham CEO, David Marlow, commented: “As we entered 2019 we were aware of a number of market and societal challenges that lay ahead. With that in mind it was important that our member-focused purpose – to help our members save, plan for and protect their financial futures – remained to the fore of our thinking and actions.
 
“Through our unique whole-of-market mortgage advice arm, Nottingham Mortgage Services, we’ve enabled more homeowners and buyers to enjoy the best the mortgage market has to offer, increasing the number of members and customers using the service by more than 15%.”
 
To protect the average rate that The Nottingham paid to savers in 2019, the society announced that it took a ‘conscious’ decision to reduce new mortgage lending and focus on retaining existing borrowers. 

Marlow added: “Our planned reduction in new mortgage lending, in the face of falling market mortgage yields, was expertly managed to find what we felt was the right balance between the conflicting needs of our mortgage and savings members.

“We set ourselves a target to achieve 70% retention of existing borrowers choosing to stay with us when they get to the end of their promotional period, which was achieved. We also launched a number of exciting products, based on broker feedback including retirement interest only and cashback mortgages, which paid out over £75,000 in cashback to homeowners last year alone.”

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