Swansea Building Society has seen its total assets reaching the £500m mark for the first time as it remains committed to maintaining its high street presence.
The figure for the first quarter of this year, builds on 2021 when it achieved a 12% expansion on the previous year to £463.5m.
Total assets comprises the society’s mortgages, assets held for liquidity purposes and a small amount of other assets.
The Swansea headquartered mutual, which last year was named the UK's most profitable building society, has also invested £1m in its IT and back office infrastructure. It has also this year recruited new staff in mortgage underwriting, IT and strengthened its mortgage sales team.
The society, set up in 1923, remains one of the few financial institutions in the UK that receives no wholesale funding or support from the Bank of England in the form of cheap funding.
Its balance sheet is funded entirely by customer savings balances and its own capital reserves built up from retained profits over many years.
Its chief executive, Alun Williams, said: “Even in the context of what has been an extraordinary couple of years for the Society, hitting this landmark and making these announcements in new investments and people feels very special.
"We have remained positive throughout the challenges of Covid and I feel we have reaped the rewards in terms of customer loyalty and commitment. We remain proud of our ethos of opening, not closing, branches and continue to help normal families every day, to make positive decisions around both savings and owning their own homes.”
As well as its HQ building it has branches in Swansea, Mumbles, Carmarthen and Cowbridge.
