A BUILDING society with roots in Huddersfield has been held up as an example of how the sector has overcome “highly competitive” conditions.

A report by accountancy firm KPMG showed that all but four of the UK’s 48 building societies were profitable in the last year.

It said that 28 mutuals had increased bottom-line profits while the four losses compared with six in the previous year’s report.

Nationwide continues to dominate with total assets of £188.9bn in April accounting for 61.7% of the sector.

The Yorkshire Building Society, which grew from the Huddersfield and Bradford society, was held up as an example of building societies “looking after their own problems” – with its acquisition of the Chelsea Building Society last year.

Last week, members of Norwich & Peterborough voted in favour of merging with the Yorkshire – reinforcing the Bradford-based mutual’s status as the UK’s second largest player.

KPMG partner Simon Walker said building societies continued to have a “good” credit crisis – in contrast with the problems endured by former societies such as Halifax and Northern Rock.