Newcastle Permanent records strong mortgage growth in 2015

The mutual's annual financial results highlight its strong performance in its core business of home lending, with a 53 per cent increase in home loan portfolio growth from the previous financial year.

“In 2014-15 the home lending market was characterised by historically low interest rates, exceptionally high levels of customer repayments and continued strong competition from the major banks,” Newcastle Permanent chairman Michael Slater said.

“Newcastle Permanent has withstood unprecedented market conditions and emerged with strong home loan portfolio growth of 4.9 per cent, which is a 53 per cent increase on the prior year,” Mr Slater said. “This excellent performance was achieved while also completing the implementation of a new state-of-the-art home loan processing system.”

During the last seven years Newcastle Permanent had invested more than $60 million in major projects to improve the business’s infrastructure and introduce advanced customer-facing technology to better meet customers’ needs and drive growth across the business.

The lender achieved a net profit after tax for the 2015 financial year of $36.5 million.

The mutual now employs almost 1,000 people throughout NSW and maintains a Tier 1 Capital Ratio of 20 per cent with total assets approaching $9 billion.

CEO Terry Millett said Newcastle Permanent’s customer focus stood out to its customers as a high-quality and better value alternative to the major banks.

“The success of our business model translates in Newcastle Permanent’s customer satisfaction score of 95 per cent, more than 10 percentage points higher than the best of the major banks.

“Newcastle Permanent’s position as a preferred home lender with a growing presence in the metropolitan market is no coincidence.

“We have more than $1.2 billion of home loans in the Sydney market and more than $3 billion outside of the Hunter region,” he said.