UK building society Nationwide has seen profits soar in the last financial year following a rise in income and cost-cutting measures across the business.
The mutual, which is headquartered in Swindon, revealed in its preliminary results that pre-tax profits in the year to April 4 had nearly doubled from £466m to £823m.
The pandemic and UK lockdown restrictions saw households top up their savings accounts in record numbers, the building society said.
The high street lender also revealed deposits during the past year increased by £10.6bn as shops and the leisure industry remained closed for large parts of the year. This compared with just £5.7bn the year before the pandemic.
Mortgages remained strong, with customers taking advantage of the stamp duty holiday, although stricter criteria at the bank saw overall mortgage lending down slightly from £30.9bn to £29.6bn.
During the year, Nationwide introduced 90% loan-to-value mortgages and also brought in 95% loan-to-value mortgages this month.
Cost-cutting helped with the profit boost, with bosses revealing administrative expenses fell by £94m to £2.2bn.
This was in part due to lower running costs during the pandemic and comes as the lender said in future its 13,000 staff can work more flexibly.
Nationwide said: “Remote working has been popular with colleagues and made us more productive. The flexibility also helps us better serve our members. We are therefore adopting a flexible working model into the future, where colleagues can choose where they work.”
Chief executive Joe Garner said the past year had shown the "financial strength" of the building society mutual model.
"It has been a tough year, one that tested the resilience of people and businesses," he said.
"Given the profound uncertainties we faced, we focused on the things that were most important in times of crisis:namely to keep our people and members safe and our Society strong.
"We entered the crisis in a position of financial strength and, in the face of a highly uncertain environment, we took steps to protect our finances."
Nationwide added that those who struggled financially during the pandemic were helped with 256,000 mortgage payment holidays and 105,000 payment breaks for loans and credit cards.
