Nationwide has reported an underlying profit of £212 million and a statutory profit before tax of £341 million for the last financial year.

Its residential mortgage accounts which are more than three months in arrears was 0.68%, up slightly from 0.64% in April 2009, is less than a third of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) industry average of 2.22%.

Nationwide also reported an almost 60% increase in unit sales of protection and investment products with approximately £2.2 billion of customer investments in the year

Graham Beale, Nationwide’s chief executive, said it was a strong set of results. He added: “We have an extremely strong balance sheet with market leading capital ratios