Skipton Building Society has announced record pre-tax profits of £37.14 million.

In a year dominated by talk of Skipton being taken over, merging or becoming a bank, the society has remained fiercely committed to its 'mutual' status.

The society is looking to almost double its workforce in Skipton, with work on building a large extension to its headquarter on the Bailey perhaps starting this autumn.

During 1997 Skipton Building Society increased the number of property transactions to 1.45 million and mortgage completions rose by 38 per cent to £890.4 million.

In a bullish comment about future prospects, the society believes that neither the reduction in the Budget of mortgage interest relief from 15 to 10 per cent which comes into effect next month, nor the increase in stamp duty on higher value properties will have a damaging effect on the housing market.

Skipton is determined to be among the cheapest mortgages in the market and also provide a wide range of products. It was the first building society to offer free payment protection insurance.

Skipton is well below the industry average for arrears. At the end of the year only 0.6 per cent of residential mortgages were three to six months in arrears, just over half the industry average.

Chief executive John Goodfellow commented: "Skipton's strong results in 1997 conclusively prove that an independent mutual can be an enviable force within the financial services arena.

"Providing our members with consistently competitive interest rates and, therefore, operating to a low interest margin did not hinder our healthy progress."

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