The report covers the mutual’s activities across 2021. Yorkshire Building Society says that it wants to provide ‘real help with real life’, which means helping people have a place to call home, as well as helping them find greater financial wellbeing.
As a result, the report highlights the mutual’s achievements which it believes tally with those goals. For example, Yorkshire noted it had helped 85,000 people to find a home last year, including 42,000 first-time buyers, as well as 144 homeless young people.
The mutual has set itself the target of helping 500,000 to have a place to call home over the next few years.
In the report, Yorkshire noted that it is keen to continue offering mortgages to those with small deposits, revealing that around 30 per cent of its new business has a 90 to 95 per cent loan to value profile.
Yorkshire said it plans to do more to support homeownership “by developing mortgage propositions, and enhancing our analytical capabilities, to improve the range of products we can offer to borrowers less well served by the wider market”.
The report also picked out how the building society is helping support people towards greater financial wellbeing. These include schemes aimed at encouraging people to save money, with the promise of the relaunch of the Make Me A Saver scheme this year. The account is a regular saver that enters savers into a monthly draw, with the possibility of winning a £1,500 prize.
In terms of the environment, the mutual managed a five per cent reduction in its carbon footprint over the year, while 99.5 per cent of its waste has been diverted from landfill.
Pauline Giroux, senior manager for social purpose and sustainability, commented: “In 2021 we’ve re-focused our priorities. We’ve continued delivering our purpose ambitions of helping people have a place to call home and improved financial wellbeing, underpinned by the delivery of value to our members. But we’ve also identified three additional areas of focus, which form our responsible business priority areas. These are: investing in our people, building a greener society, and operating responsibly.”
