“I STRONGLY suspect that there will be more scandals in the industry, but they won’t involve us,” said the boss of a North-East lender which is quietly rebuilding the tattered image of financial services.

Newcastle Building Society said its determination to stick to “traditional values” was paying off as it reported a trebling in profit before tax, rising staff and customer satisfaction, and £1m in donations to the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation.

Yesterday, Royal Bank of Scotland suspended another two employees as part of an investigation by the bank into foreign exchange market rigging. RBS was one of six banks fined a combined £2.6bn last month for failing to stop foreign exchange market manipulation.

The Newcastle, which employs 870 staff, has stuck doggedly to its strategy of returning to basic principles implemented since chief executive Jim Willens took the helm in 2010 and resist the temptation to offer the types of unsustainable loans that helped spark the financial crisis.

Its annual results showed before tax profit rose from £1.3m to £4m. Operating profit before impairment provisions and exceptional items increased from £10.6m to £12.4m and, during the period, the percentage of loans in three months arrears or more reduced from 0.64 per cent to 0.53 per cent, well below industry averages.

Reflecting on what he said had been another year of “steady progress” Mr Willens told The Northern Echo: “I think there is a confusion among people looking at what we do as a traditional building society and thinking there is nothing to it. But we face a significant challenge in taking those values of openness, honesty into the modern world.”

Asked what were the chances of him deviating from his strategy – as the housing market and wider economy starts to heat up – Mr Willens replied: “Zero. That might be for other people but it’s not for us. There is a very good reason. Our job is to provide the North-East with dependable, good value products for savers and to help people who want to buy a house. It’s pretty simple really.”

Mr Willens’ comments came against a backdrop of more heartening news for the mortgage industry.

Yorkshire Building Society profits rose 18 per cent to £179m last year while gross lending rose 13 per cent to a record £7.6bn. And Leeds Building Society said that its operating profit before exceptional items rose by 26 per cent to a record £80.9m, in 2013 it was £64.2m, and its new residential mortgage lending increased by 24 per cent to £2.7bn