Pre-tax losses have been cut to £9.5 million by building society the West Brom – but its years in the red continue.
The society, formerly known as West Bromwich Building Society, saw pre-tax losses fall by 31 per cent in the year to the end of March.
The fall represents another step in the right direction for the group, but it has posted losses for the last four years since being hit with a bad debts charge of £62.5 million in 2009 after the wider banking collapse.
Chief executive Jonathan Westhoff said: "The West Brom has shown continued progress over the past year in line with our ‘Back to Basics’ strategy and its emphasis on the core building society priorities of retail savings, investments and prime residential mortgages.
"This has resulted in the society once again being able to reduce pre-tax losses and, more significantly, deliver a strong improvement in underlying performance.
"While turbulence and instability in the economy prevails, our focus continues to be on providing our members with excellence in products and service."
The society made losses of £48.8 million in 2009, in the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse, £18.5 million in 2010 and £13.1 million last year – so it has gradually been reducing annual losses.
The group had retail savings inflows of £2.4 billion, attracting some 52,300 new savers, with residential mortgages covered 1.31 times by retail deposits.
The group said its core tier one capital ratio increased from 12.8 per cent to 13.3 per cent – one of the highest among UK banks and building societies – and strong levels of high quality liquidity balances were maintained.
