OneSavings Bank, the challenger bank which owns Kent Reliance, increased profits last year as its focus on professional landlords paid off.

The Chatham-headquartered lender boosted underlying pre-tax profits by 21% to £167.7 million despite a contraction in the nation's buy-to-let market.

Reporting its final results for 2017, it said tax and regulatory changes had put off amateur investors looking to buy a second home to rent out while not deterring professional landlords.

Its buy-to-let lending division grew by 39% to £5 billion as its number of new mortgages for rental homes increased last year.

Multi-property owners made up 80% of completions for the bank by value.

Meanwhile, its retail lending business increased deposits by 12% to £6.7 billion.

More than 27,000 savings customers joined the bank last year and its retention rate stood at 90%.

Kent Reliance was recognised as the best cash ISA provider by Moneyfacts for the fifth year running.

It helped OneSavings Bank grow its overall loan book by 23% to £7.3 billion, driven by 14% growth in gross originations to £2.6 billion.

Underlying basic earnings per share were up 23% to 51.1p, leading the lender to pay a final dividend of 9.3p per share, giving a full year dividend of 12.8p per share.

Chief executive Andy Golding said: "I am delighted that OneSavings Bank has delivered another excellent set of results for 2017, whilst successfully navigating significant regulatory and tax changes in our core buy-to-let market.

"Despite market sentiment linked to political and economic uncertainty going forward, we entered 2018 with a strong pipeline of new business in our core markets and intend to deploy our proven credit risk and operational competencies to expand our residential and commercial product offerings in 2018.

"OneSavings Bank is well placed to take advantage of growth opportunities in 2018 and we remain confident in our ability to generate attractive returns for our shareholders."