Over 8% of the total went to first-time buyers through the Family First mortgage lent at up to 95% loan to value (LTV).

Net advances in 2012 were £68.9m which, according to National Counties analysis of Bank of England data, was 1% of the total net advances made by UK lenders in 2012.

Building Societies Association figures show that gross mortgage lending by building societies and other mutual lenders in 2012 was £30.7bn, up by 30% against 2011. Mutuals took a 22% market share of gross lending in the year, again, up from 17% in 2011.

Keith Barber, associate director business development at National Counties Building Society, said: “I’m delighted to report how well the society has performed in 2012, despite challenging market conditions. As evidenced by the last 12 months we are committed to improving our range of products to meet the needs of our members, both new and existing.

“Our conservative approach to underwriting has continued and, even when taking into account our lending to first time buyers, the average LTV on our new lending in 2012 was consistently under 55%. We have a great team of dedicated underwriters who consider each customer’s application individually. To ensure that we can continue to build on our capacity for lending we have significantly increased the size of the underwriting team in the past 12 months.”

National Counties Building Society is the UK’s twelfth largest building society, with over 50,000 members and £1.2bn of assets.