Leeds has more than 870,000 members, including more than 600,000 savers, and offers a variety of branch-based accounts that come with a passbook to help customers keep track of their money.

The society described the traditional passbook as “extremely popular”.

The announcement came after Lloyds Bank announced plans to scrap passbooks, a move which angered unions which said the bank would use subsequent falling footfall in branches to justify closures.

In a survey last year, 71% of Leeds customers who took part said they’d prefer to use passbooks to manage their accounts, including the majority (58%) of savers aged 16 to 44 who were asked.

Leeds: ‘Our members want passbooks’

Richard Fearon, Leeds Building Society chief executive, said: “Our members want passbooks, we’re going to keep them and any saver who wants to keep theirs should know we will warmly welcome them.

“Passbooks are an important way for many savers to feel in complete control of their money and we want to encourage that as much as possible.

“Many members feel passionate about their passbooks and have told us they would look elsewhere if we decided to withdraw them, and we’ve no plans to do that. Anyone opening a savings account in one of our branches will be able to take a passbook away with them there and then.

“Clearly, if preferences change significantly over time, then we’d need to look again at them but when you consider the strength of feeling among younger savers, we see no signs of that happening soon.”

Leeds Building Society has 50 branches across the country, and in the first half of this year saw savings balances grow 9% to £19.1bn. Its minimum branch-based savings rate is currently 2.45%.