Francess McDonnell reports on how Progressive Building Society, one of the oldest locally owned financial institutions, is competing with the giants on its home patch.
Progressive Building Society expects to unveil a record 17 per cent rise in lending volumes for 2001 in its next annual report due to be published this quarter.
Despite the underlying slowdown in the Northern Ireland economy and the fact that it did not advertise its mortgage products once during the 12 months under review, the Progressive Building Society is clearly bucking general economic trends in the North.
According to a number of recent industry surveys, house price growth slowed dramatically in Northern Ireland last year, yet overall business at the Progressive Building Society grew 10 per cent.
Mr Bill Webb, managing director of Progressive, believes its industry-envied growth rates have been driven by "word-of-mouth" recommendations.
"Our philosophy is the same today as it was when Progressive was first established in 1914, we are a financial institution owned by local people that serves local people. We are an independent voice in Northern Ireland that harnesses the savings of local people to provide loans. Our members trust us and that is a key component of our service in Northern Ireland," Mr Webb said.
He is proud that Progressive can boast "generations" of families among its customers. "Our big strength is that we know our customers because we operate at grass roots levels. We have 130,000 savers in Northern Ireland and 14,000 borrowers and we believe in keeping close to our members.
"While other financial institutions are focusing on customers, we are focusing on members and that means that we are not trying to use our members as profit growers. We believe in establishing relationships not just relationship management," Mr Webb said.
The Progressive Building Society's assets now amount to £840 million sterling (€518 million). In the past 10 years, it has grown its asset base by 250 per cent.
It was first established in 1914 by Mr Samuel Howard and was born out of the merger of five smaller societies. Mr Howard steered the building society through World War years and economic depression until his retirement in 1940. The building society's assets in 1940 amounted to just £8,000. Next year Progressive has set its sights on growing its assets base to £1 billion.
"We have faced a lot of challenges in the last two decades. The financial services sector is very competitive and there is a lot of choice in the market so we have to offer very competitive products to survive," Mr Webb said, adding that the building society's aims remain consistent for 2002.
"We intend to continue to grow our business, we see a lot more room for growth in Northern Ireland and we intend to do this by serving the best interests of our members."
