Why is it important?
Whether it's buying a home, saving for life's big moments, or just finding information on our Knowledge Base, we want to help our members do more with their money. Now we're putting a plan in place to give focus on the future.
What we're already doing
Helping people to save for their future
In 2017 we helped a record 71,429 people to save for their future and 50,279 people have the home they want. We’ve achieved this through providing an attractive savings range and ensuring that our lending reflects differing and changing needs in society.
Supporting first time buyers
We helped 12,944 first time buyers onto the housing ladder and, in total, our lending for affordable housing, including help to buy and right to buy schemes, increased by almost 10% from 2016 to £564 million in 2017.
Lending sensibly
We’ve made a number of changes to our lending criteria, including removing maximum tenancy periods for buy-to-let mortgages, giving landlords the opportunity to pass on longer-term tenancy agreements to their tenants, alongside increasing the maximum age for residential mortgage applications from 75 to 80.
Offering online guidance
To help people save and have the home they want, we created the Knowledge Base. It’s an online resource full of articles on everything from how to get the right buildings insurance cover to saving for a special day.
All statistical references referred to throughout this article come from the Leeds Building Society Annual Report and Accounts 2017.
Our 2017 - 2020 targets
- Help over 225,000 people to save for their future.
- Help over 175,000 people to have the home they want.
- Help 30,000 first time buyers into a home of their own.
