"While the coronavirus impacted our profitability in the last few weeks of the year, there was pressure on margins even before it hit."
Underlying profits fell from £788m to £469m over the period. Gross mortgage lending is down from £36.4bn to £30.9bn and net lending fell by £8.6bn to £2.8bn. Nationwide says it still supported 1 in 6 first-time buyers in 2019 and said buy-to-let lending "grew strongly" over the year.
The Society has attributed the losses to an additional provision of £101m for expected credit losses resulting from the coronavirus pandemic alongside lower income, increased investment costs, and higher PPI charges.
Joe Garner, chief executive of Nationwide Building Society, said: "In the last month of our financial year all our lives have been overshadowed by the coronavirus. We have prioritised protecting the health and wellbeing of our colleagues from this terrible disease, supporting those members in financial difficulty, and maintaining essential services. I would like to thank our employees who have gone to extraordinary lengths to serve our members through this time.
"We are helping members in financial difficulty with payment holidays on mortgages and loans and interest-free overdraft periods, and we have promised that no mortgage member will lose their home over the next 12 months due to the impact of the coronavirus. We've taken steps to protect our employees' physical and mental health so we can maintain essential services to our members, and we've gone a step further and promised that everyone's job is safe in 2020. We are paying our suppliers early, especially smaller ones, to help them stay in business. We have also increased our support for charitable partners, like Shelter, to help protect their vital services during the pandemic. We believe that the character of any organisation comes very much to the fore in times like these, and we have been making our decisions very much with this in mind.
"While the coronavirus impacted our profitability in the last few weeks of the year, there was pressure on margins even before it hit. Notwithstanding this, we achieved a great deal during 2019/20. We have record membership and grew the number of people we helped into a home, to save and to manage their money. We launched a new green agenda, including a £1 billion loan fund, to help make Britain's homes greener. We also delivered £715 million in member financial benefit. In the challenging period ahead, Nationwide will focus on maintaining our financial strength, managing our business sustainably, and prioritising the needs of our members."
