Nationwide Building Society, the biggest building society in UK, announced today that its underlying profit declined by 46% for the full year ended April 4, 2010. Nationwide blamed the relatively low interest rates for the disappointing performance in the fiscal.

Nationwide posted an underlying pretax profit of £212 million in the full year ended April 4, decreasing by 46% comparing to last year's figure of £393 million.

However, statutory profit was reported of £341 million for the full year, increasing by 80% while it was reported of £190 million in the previous corresponding period. Pre loan provisions profit was reported of £811 million in the period compared to £846 million posted in previous fiscal.

Nationwide said that total mortgage lending was reported of £12 billion in the year, decreasing by 9% comparing to previous fiscal. Bad debts of the society were reported of £549 million at the end of the fiscal, compared to £394 million reported at the end of last fiscal.

Reportedly, Nationwide is all set to impose some cost cutting measures like jobs cut to be on track this year. The society had already cut around 800 jobs last year. However, Nationwide said that it expects a broad stability in the housing market of UK over the next 6 to 12 months.