Your AGM questions answered

2023 was Skipton’s 170th year and the Society performed strongly, delivering £333.4m in Group Profit Before Tax. Being member-owned, and with no shareholders to satisfy, in 2023 Skipton distributed record investment into more innovative offerings including:

• Launch of our Track Record mortgage – the only available deposit-free mortgage without the need for a guarantor; enabling those trapped in expensive rents to realise their homeownership aspirations;
• We launched a highly competitive member benefit regular saver product - with over 60,000 new accounts opened by members. We expect to pay more than £8m interest on maturity.;
• Members benefitted by over £148m given through above market average savings rates – we paid our savers 0.65% above the rest of the market average for banks and building societies in 2023.¹
• Extension of our free Home Energy Performance Assessment Report (EPC Plus) offer –since launch, c.10,000 surveys have been conducted providing over £700k of benefit to our members;
• The launch of a free pension health check enabling members to make more of their money now, and in the future, to have the retirement they deserve – over 600 pension health checks were booked in the year, since launch in August;
• Committed to donating 1% of Group profit before tax each year to charitable causes;
• Ever-improving customer service – our commitment to our members continues to be recognised, being awarded Customer Contact Association (CCA) Global Accreditation for Customer Experience.

¹ Source: CACI Current Account & Savings Database, Stock, Jan - Dec 2023

* Rest of market as defined in CACI’s Current Account and Savings Database, Stock, including fixed and variable rates. CACI is an independent company that provides financial benchmarking data from over 35 savings providers, who together hold £1.13tn of cash in savings accounts as at end December 2023.

Helping people get the keys to their first home is a priority for the Society. And in 2023 Skipton increased the number of first-time buyers we helped by 40% (to over 19,000). We also quadrupled the borrowing power of first-time buyers through our Income Booster mortgage – which by the end of 2023 had received over £327.5m in applications. Additionally, we also received over £62m in applications from first-time buyers via our innovative Track Record Mortgage for renters struggling to raise a deposit.

With a 6.3% increase in mortgage advances (to £6.7bn) and Group mortgage balance growth of over 12% (to £28.6bn), 2023 saw Skipton increase its relative mortgage market share by 12.7%. This is despite the UK mortgage market being stagnant for most of the year.

The interest rates members receive on their savings reflect a whole range of factors, including, but not limited to, what the Bank of England Base rate is, interest members pay on mortgages and savings market rates.

In 2023 Skipton’s saving members benefitted by over £148m given through above market average savings rates –  we paid our savers 0.65% above the rest of the market average for banks and building societies in 2023.²

We launched a highly competitive member benefit regular saver product - with over 60,000 new accounts opened by members. We expect to pay more than £8m interest on maturity.

With Skipton’s savings balances increasing by 15.4% (to £26bn) and the number of financial advice customers growing 0.9% (to 47,126) with funds under management rising to £4.3bn, Skipton’s savings market share grew by 10.7% in 2023. This is despite the UK savings market only growing by 1.9%.

² Source: CACI Current Account & Savings Database, Stock, Jan - Dec 2023

* Rest of market as defined in CACI’s Current Account and Savings Database, Stock, including fixed and variable rates. CACI is an independent company that provides financial benchmarking data from over 35 savings providers, who together hold £1.13tn of cash in savings accounts as at end December 2023.

Addressing the risks and opportunities linked to climate change remains high on our agenda. In 2022 and 2023, the Skipton Group took further steps to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and support members in taking steps to reduce their own. This included:

• beginning the journey of screening our end to end value chain emissions (including those generated from the homes we lend on) to identify the full range of opportunities for carbon reduction
• establishing a net zero ambition, with the aim of halving operational emissions by 2030 and achieving net zero in our operations and value chain by 2045
• launching additional borrowing so that money could be put towards home energy efficiency/environmental improvement
• continuing to monitor potential climate-related risk exposures for our lending portfolio through modelling of climate-related and property EPC data
• screening our suppliers for their environmental credentials, including emissions monitoring, working with third party EcoVadis
• reducing our operational greenhouse gas emissions by switching to renewable energy certificates across our premises
• launching a set of investment options which integrate environmental, social and governance criteria, to screen out certain products or industries, such as those which produce tobacco, controversial weapons, and thermal coal
• launching EPC Plus, a free home energy performance report available to every one of Skipton’s home-owning members, so they can understand their home’s energy efficiency and what opportunities there might be to improve this.

Absolutely. We’re committed to a branch network presence and look to ensure that our branches all provide a valuable benefit to members. In branch, we're delighted to offer support in the moments that matter, with information and guidance for savers and access to financial advice to help members achieve their long-term financial goals.

We'll put more investment in to help colleagues deal with more complex issues face-to-face, so members get the best value from our skills.

A diverse and inclusive culture is an integral part of our core values and is key to ensuring the Society delivers a great service to its members. In 2022, we appointed our first female chair in our 170-year history. We also recognise that we’ve more to do.

All appointments are made to the Board on the basis of merit, and the appointment process is based on their knowledge, skills, experience, and suitability for the role, so that they can deliver value to the Society and its members as well as meeting the regulatory requirements. In making appointments and reviewing its composition, the Board considers all aspects of diversity, including age, experience, and gender.

We want all people to feel welcome to work at the Society and to fulfil their potential, irrespective of their gender, ethnicity, age, disability, or sexual orientation. We're ambitious to increase diversity further both on the Board and in the Society, but this does depend on finding and developing appropriately qualified candidates. We’ll continue to work hard in this area both in terms of identifying people and developing those who already work for us.