Nationwide has said the UK economy and housing market should remain resilient, “assuming uncertainty around the referendum lifts”, after reporting soaring profits which rose by almost a quarter last year to £1.28billion.

The great building society survivor strengthened its position as the UK’s second biggest mortgage lender, leading challenger in current accounts, and top-rated high street institution for customer service, in its tenth and final year under outgoing chief executive Graham Beale.

His successor, former BT Openreach chief Joe Garner, said: “Nationwide has demonstrated that outstanding customer service is the most sustainable path to excellent business performance. It's a credit to the management and people of the society that they have consistently understood this and organised Nationwide around this principle.”

He added: “As the new chief executive, my job will be to build on this success. As the results show, Nationwide is not in need of radical reform, but it is an organisation that should constantly challenge itself on ways it can improve and offer an enhanced level of service to its members.”

The mutual giant has 47 of its 700 branches in Scotland after rescuing the Dunfermline seven years ago. Alison Robb, group director, said: “We have invested in creating some really good job opportunities in our Dunfermline centre.” Those include management of new services such as the ‘Nationwide Now’ mortgage advice video-link, being rolled out across the network and already in over half of branches.

Nationwide grabbed a 21.4per cent share of net mortgage lending, down from almost a third in 2015, and served 16per cent of first-time buyers, up from 15per cent. Last month it lifted its age limit for repaying mortgages from 75 to 85, the highest threshold of any high street lender, and its lending levels are now back to pre-crash levels.

Ms Robb commented: “There is no doubt that competition for high-quality business is intensifying, everybody wants the low LTV business, particularly where interest rates continue to be low, and we see that competitive environment continuing – we expect that in the current account market as well.”

The society piled on 525,000 current accounts, a rise of 12 per cent, and its gains from the switching service were up by 38 per cent, attracting one in eight of all switchers. Deposit balances rose by £6.3bn compared with only £1.8bn in 2015.

Nationwide was again ranked number one for customer service satisfaction amongst its high street peer group, and accounted for only two per cent of ombudsman complaints with only 18per cent upheld against an industry average of 53per cent. Provisions for customer redress, mainly PPI mis-sales, more than doubled - to a relatively tiny £129m.

The society recorded a huge 23.1per cent capital ratio, up from 14.5 per cent two years ago. Its leverage ratio of 4.2per cent however was only marginally ahead of the 4.1per cent last year when the group set a five per cent target.

Ms Robb said there were positive economic signs in the levels of employment and wage growth, but global uncertainties were still weighing on interest rates “which means we do expect that the growth we have seen over the last couple of years will slow down”.