OneSavings Bank sets aside £20m to cover fraud costs
OneSavings Bank (OSB) has set aside £20m to cover the costs of fraudulent activity carried out by one of its corporate customers.
The cost to the lender is lower than it initially anticipated, saying in a market update last month it estimated the fraud cost to be around £28.6m.
As a result of the incident, which the buy-to-let lender said was thought to be a one-off, OSB’s annual results were delayed until today.
In its 2020 financial year, OBS increased its statutory profit before tax by 25 per cent to £260m, while its underlying profit before tax decreased by nine per cent to £346.2m.
The bank’s net loan book grew four per cent to £19.2bn on a statutory basis and five per cent to £19bn on an underlying basis.
The lender is offering a dividend of 14.5 pence per share for 2020, representing 25 per cent of full year underling earnings attributable to ordinary shareholders.
CEO Andy Golding said: “I am extremely proud of the group’s performance in a very challenging year. Our business model proved its resilience in 2020 and we produced another year of strong returns despite the impact of the pandemic.”