Newcastle Permanent Building Society declared a "mutuality dividend" of A$54.7 million for the 2015/16 financial year - a figure based on an assessment of the advantage its customers enjoy not banking with a major bank.Newcastle Permanent commissioned Canstar to compare the rates and fees of its products with the equivalent products offered by the majors. The difference in value is its mutuality benefit.Combined with a 12 per cent increase in net profit to $40.9 per cent, Newcastle Permanent reported "total value" for customers of $95.6 million - an increase of 7.8 per cent over the previous year.A bullish chief executive Terry Millett said the calculation of the mutuality dividend did not take into account the benefit customers enjoyed banking with an institution that has a Roy Morgan customer satisfaction score of 92.3 per cent.The mutual grew its home loan portfolio 11.5 per cent in the year to June, compared with system growth of 6.7 per cent over the same period.Credit quality was strong, with arrears of 90 days or more of just 0.13 per cent.Millett said the group rebuilt its origination system a couple of years ago and was able to handle bigger loan volumes, without compromising service standards or turnaround times."We did $2.2 billion of applications - up from $1.7 billion the year before. We can handle a very competitive turnaround," he said.Millett said Newcastle Permanent would invest $15 million in projects in the current year, replacing its internet and mobile banking platforms and digitising more of its processes.The tier one capital ratio was 18.86 per cent.