OneSavings Bank more than doubles its annual profits

17th Mar 2015 08:55

OneSavings Bank, a specialist lender in the UK, more than doubled its profits on the back of strong loan growth in the housing market.The lender, which listed in London last summer, said full-year 2014 loans and advances reached £3.9bn as compared to £3.0bn a year ago, with total assets now at £4.9bn. As such, statutory profit before tax leapt to £63.7m from £31.4m in 2013.The group reported net interest income at £125.2m versus £70.8m a year ago and said the underlying return on equity is up over 9 percentage points to 31% vs the year-ago level of 22% on a higher equity base.As such, the group reported that its fully-loaded Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital ratio strengthened to 11.4% from 8.4% in 2013. The Kent-based challenger to high street lenders has also declared its inaugural final dividend of 3.9p per share in respect of last year."We experienced strong growth in profitability across all of our business segments whilst maintaining tight control on costs and excellent levels of customer service," said Andy Golding, chief executive of the bank. "Looking forward, we believe the macroeconomic backdrop remains supportive for the overall housing market and we expect to see a continuation of the positive trends we experienced in our target markets during 2014," added Golding.The bank, which was created after Kent Building Society was rescued by a £50m cash injection from US private equity firm, JC Flowers. The lender concentrates on the buy-to-let and smaller business lending sectors, specialist residential mortgages and personal loans.