Ipswich Building Society completed £115m in new mortgage lending in 2019, up slightly from the previous year’s £107m.
Despite this £8m increase in gross mortgage lending, the society’s full-year results to 30 November 2019 showed its mortgage assets reduced by £13m from £523m to £526m.
The society said this was due to a high level of maturities seen during the year and customers transferring to alternative lenders in the low rate market.
Ipswich also said intermediary partners accounted for 90 per cent of mortgage business.
Alan Harris, Ipswich Building Society chairman, said: “We anticipate 2020 being another challenging environment for financial services. Activity in the housing sector is reduced and house price inflation is low, or in some areas, in decline, and we anticipate strong price competition in mortgages as well as savings in the near future.
“However, our strength is in our simplicity and we remain focused on delivering only for our members as a strong and committed mutual.”
Overall, the society ended the year with a total profit before tax of £1.9m, significantly lower than the £3.3m seen the year before.
It said this was down to “good capital retention” in 2018, which allowed it to repay £3.5m of subordinated debt early.
Shekina is the deputy editor at Mortgage Solutions and commercial editor at Mortgage Solutions and Specialist Lending Solutions. She has nearly eight years of experience in the B2B publishing market, having previously covered the hospitality, retail, pet, accounting and jewellery sectors.
Shekina has worked for Mortgage Solutions and Specialist Lending Solutions for almost five years. Here, she covers the market’s breaking news stories, engages with professionals in the sector, and oversees any commercially agreed content in partnership with mortgage-related companies.
This includes presenting webinars and hosting roundtable discussions on developing themes in the mortgage sector.
She is an NCTJ-trained journalist and was nominated for the Headline Money Awards Mortgage Journalist of the Year in 2021.
In her spare time, Shekina likes to read, travel, listen to music and socialise with friends.
She currently reports on current events in the mortgage market and liaises with financial clients to produce sponsored content.
Follow her on Twitter at @ShekinaMS
