NATIONWIDE building society, which has an administration centre in Bournemouth, has said its commitment to customer service is fuelling its financial success.

Announcing its half-year results for 2014/15, Nationwide said it was pleased that it had delivered strong profits while maintaining strong customer satisfaction ratings.

Underlying profit increased by 83 per cent to £606million and statutory profit increased by 113 per cent to £598million.

Meanwhile, the company has been ranked number one for customer satisfaction among its high street peer group for three consecutive years and Which? Magazine rated it as the highest ranked high street provider of retail financial services in a recent survey.

Alison Robb, group director, said: “We’re absolutely delighted that our position relating to customer service is just as strong as ever.

“We spend a lot of money on providing great service to our customers and we are focused on innovation.

“There’s no doubt to us this is a business owned by our members.

“The ultimate goal is to provide a service that our members are really proud of. But by the same token it’s also really important people want us to be incredibly safe and sound financially.”

One of Nationwide’s successes has been an enhanced banking app, which is proving more popular than its internet site. But Miss Robb said they were planning to retain around 700 branches across the UK.

“We absolutely feel it’s vitally important that our branches are there to provide help and advice for members,” she said. “They still want to be able to go into a branch, get advice from our staff.

“We’re now looking at investing £300m in our branch network.”

She added Bournemouth was one of its “key centres” and said: “We’re actually looking at introducing some new roles into Bournemouth going forward, some skilled roles.

“We are investing heavily in our business and in our people.

“We were the first major high street employers to sign up to the living wage campaign and that’s something we’re committed to.

“Across all of our roles, investment in our people sits alongside investment in our technology and our property.”