A record breaking year for Progressive Building Society

Progressive Building Society, Northern Ireland’s largest locally owned financial institution has released its results for 2015 demonstrating strong market growth, with mortgage lending increasing by over 21% to £185 million.

Progressive’s results build on its consistent growth over the last number of years achieving post tax profits of £11.1 million in 2015, an increase of 8% on 2014. The Society’s success has seen it create 17 new jobs across the business last year and continuing to invest in its 12 strong branch network.

Darina Armstrong, Chief Executive of Progressive Building Society commented, “2015 has been Progressive’s most successful year to date, having delivered a very strong set of financial results that highlight exemplary performance in key markets, we have maintained a well-structured Balance Sheet and have improved our gross capital position to over £100 million compared to £89 million last year. The recent development and increase in our market share has been supported by a renewed confidence in the Northern Ireland housing market over the last 12 months.

“At Progressive we remain committed to investing in and supporting our branch network which is integral to our growth and development. In 2015 we refurbished our Wellington Place, Belfast branch.   We also invested in the relocation of our other Belfast city centre branch to Cornmarket and moved our Derry~Londonderry branch to a more central location in Millennium Forum.

“The high street investment programme and increase in employment at Progressive represents our strategy of growing our business by directly engaging with our members and potential members in towns and cities across Northern Ireland.”

“We remain committed to and are passionate about our branch network and the role our staff play in communities across Northern Ireland.  At Progressive we are also committed to supporting, enhancing and enriching the communities in which we operate and last year we donated £85,000 to 14 different charities with a further £26,000 raised by our staff.

“2016 is shaping up to be another busy year for Progressive, next month we will launch an exciting new partnership with Ulster University and we will continue to operate as we always have – as a traditional building society, offering good value savings and mortgage products and excellent customer service for the benefit of all our members.”