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92-558: Nationwide Building Society is the largest retail bank in the United Kingdom, and the world's largest building society , serving over 16 million members. It operates as a British mutual financial institution, meaning it is owned by and run for the benefit of its members. Nationwide is also the seventh largest cooperative financial institution globally. The Society's headquarters are located in Swindon , England. Nationwide Building Society

184-412: A computer centre and administrative office in the town since 1974 and head office departments had been gradually migrating to Swindon. Nationwide launched an early UK internet banking service on 27 May 1997. In 1999, Nationwide, together with various UK tabloid newspapers and media, launched a campaign against controversial cash machine fees. The campaign reached a peak when Barclays Bank announced

276-426: A conflict of interest between borrowers and savers. It was the task of the movement to reconcile that conflict of interest so as to enable savers to conclude that their interests and those of borrowers were to some extent complementary rather than conflictive. Conflict of interest between savers and borrowers was never fully reconciled in the building societies but upon deregulation that reconciliation became something of

368-538: A conversion, its managers derive more value from a conversion but do not suffer much loss of perks than if the bank were small. Their benefit is in the right to purchase the new stock, which are valuable because the new issues are consistently underpriced [referring to USA mutual bank conversions]. Moreover, by no means are all mutual managers incompetent, and conversions allows the bank to expand more easily and to grant executive stock options that are valuable to skilled managers". Instead of deploying their margin advantage as

460-553: A defence of mutuality, around 1980 building societies began setting mortgage rates with reference to market clearing levels. In sum they began behaving more like banks, seeking to maximise profit instead of the advantages of a mutual organisation. Thus, according to the Bank of England's Boxall & Gallagher (1997) : "... there was virtually no difference between banks and building society 'listed' interest rates for home finance mortgage lending between 1984 and 1997. This behaviour resulted in

552-603: A demutualisation and a merger in 2011, and four further mergers 2013–2018 which resulted in there being only one building society headquartered respectively in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Since then, the only merger has been in 2023, when the Manchester society merged with the Newcastle society. In the 1980s, changes to British banking laws allowed building societies to offer banking services equivalent to normal banks. The management of

644-591: A distinct company within the BT group. Ofcom said that the competition concerns that it had identified in July had not been voluntarily addressed by BT in the interim. Ofcom further announced that it was preparing a formal notification to the European Commission to start the separation process. In March 2017, BT Group plc agreed to make Openreach a separate company, Openreach Limited, with its own staff and management, but with

736-762: A divide exists between building societies that operate in New Zealand, on the one hand, and those that (although formally registered in New Zealand) operate offshore: Building societies' registration details and filed documents are available in the Register of Building Societies held at the New Zealand Companies Office. Over the years, a number of building societies were established. Openreach Openreach manages BT's local access network which connects customers to their local telephone exchange , starting at

828-545: A legally separate company, Openreach Limited. However, the network assets would still be owned by BT plc to ensure the longevity of leases and covenants, and Openreach Limited would still be wholly owned by BT plc's parent holding company, BT Group plc. Following the Telecommunications Strategic Review (TSR), in September 2005 British Telecom signed undertakings with Ofcom to create a separate division, for

920-448: A lost cause. The management of building societies apparently could expend considerable time and resources (which belonged the organisation) planning their effective capture—of as much of the assets as they could. If so, this is arguably insider dealing on a grand scale with the benefit of inside specialist knowledge of the business and resources of the firm not shared with outsiders like politicians and members (and, perhaps, regulators). Once

1012-503: A member with £50,000 in each of Nationwide, Cheshire and Derbyshire at the time of the respective mergers would retain £150,000 of FSCS protection for their funds in the merged Nationwide. On 31 December 2010 the general FSCS limit for retail deposits was increased to £85,000 for banks and building societies and the transitional arrangements in respect of building society mergers came to an end. As of February 2024 , there are 42 independent building societies, all of which are members of

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1104-477: A news article on their website showing their progress on their split from BT, with them updating "27,907 vehicles, 42 offices, 33,479 pass cards and 1,531 web pages" to reflect the change. Openreach has been awarded the status of 'Superbrand' for 2020/21. The Chinese telecommunications company Huawei was contracted to supply critical components to UK telecoms networks, including Openreach's fibre infrastructure in 2010 and EE 's 4G network. Between 2010 and 2012

1196-413: A number of societies still felt that they were unable to compete with the banks, and a new Building Societies Act was passed in 1986 in response to their concerns. This permitted societies to ' demutualise '. If more than 75% of members voted in favour, the building society would then become a limited company like any other. Members' mutual rights were exchanged for shares in this new company. A number of

1288-678: A one-member, one-vote basis. Building societies often provide other retail banking services, such as current accounts, credit cards and personal loans. The term "building society" first arose in the 19th century in Great Britain from cooperative savings groups. In the United Kingdom, building societies compete with banks for most consumer banking services, especially mortgage lending and savings accounts , and regulations permit up to half of their lending to be funded by debt to non-members, allowing societies to access wholesale bond and money markets to fund mortgages. The world's largest building society

1380-472: A permanent society. Terminating loans were still available and used inside the permanent businesses by staff up until the 1980s because their existence was not widely known after the early 1960s. Because of strict regulations on banks, building societies flourished until the deregulation of the Australian financial industry in the 1980s. Eventually many of the smaller building societies disappeared, while some of

1472-469: A plan to charge all customers of rival banks and financial providers, including those of Nationwide, £1 for every cash machine withdrawal made from a Barclays-owned cash machine . This prompted Nationwide to warn Barclays that it would take legal action against the bank if it did not back down. Nationwide claimed Barclays had broken the rules of the LINK network of cash machines, which the bank had joined earlier in

1564-454: A rather more direct and cynical conclusion: By adopting a policy of building up reserves by maintaining an excess margin, building societies simultaneously allowed banks to compete and may have undermined the long run viability of mutuality. A more cynical approach is that some societies may have adopted an excess-margin strategy simply to enhance their value for conversion. Some of these managements ended up in dispute with their own members. Of

1656-411: A return on assets for building societies which was at least as high as Plc banks and, in the absence of distribution, led to rapid accumulation of reserves". As Boxall & Gallagher (1997) also observe: "... accumulation of reserves in the early-1990s, beyond regulatory and future growth requirements, is difficult to reconcile with conventional theories of mutual behaviour". Llewellyn (1996) draws

1748-699: A review of its business. The branch, based in Douglas , provided a range of offshore savings accounts in euro , pound sterling and US dollars . It held assets in excess of £2.76 billion as at 31 March 2008, increasing to £3.69 billion by 31 March 2009, making it one of the largest deposit takers in the Isle of Man. Nationwide confirmed it would close on 30 June 2017. On 1 October 2016, Carillion began providing services for Nationwide's headquarters in Swindon, 'specifically aligned to Nationwide's sustainability strategy'. This contract

1840-475: A rolling basis, continually taking in new members as earlier ones completed purchases, such as Leek Building Society . The main legislative framework for the building society was the Building Societies Act 1874 ( 37 & 38 Vict. c. 42), with subsequent amending legislation in 1894, 1939 (see Coney Hall ), and 1960. In their heyday, there were hundreds of building societies: just about every town in

1932-455: Is Britain's Nationwide Building Society . In Australia, building societies also compete with retail banks and offer the full range of banking services to consumers. Building societies as an institution began in late-18th century Birmingham – a town which was undergoing rapid economic and physical expansion driven by a multiplicity of small metalworking firms, whose many highly skilled and prosperous owners readily invested in property. Many of

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2024-697: Is a major provider of both mortgage loans and savings in the UK, as well as personal banking such as loans, credit cards, bank accounts and insurance products. For the 2015/2016 Preliminary Results (April 2015–April 2016), underlying profits were up 9% to £1.337 billion, while statutory profits rose by 23% to £1.279 billion. Cost income ratio was 53.9%. Common Equity Tier 1 and leverage ratios improved to 23.2% and 4.2%. Gross and net lending were at £32.6 billion and £9.1 billion respectively. Nationwide helped 57,200 people buy their first home. Member deposits increased by £6.3 billion. Nationwide's long-term credit rating , as of

2116-508: Is less than FTTP. Openreach proposed making G.fast-enabled broadband available to 12 million premises by 2020. By June 2018 G.fast technology had been made available to premises in 40 locations. Meanwhile Openreach were connecting 8000 properties per week to FTTP with the aim of reaching 3 million premises by 2020, a target that was to increase following the publication of the Government's "Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review" and an increase in

2208-502: Is that Australian building societies are required to incorporate as limited companies . Current building societies are The Building Societies Act of 1962 allowed for the registration of building societies in Eswatini. For a long time the country only had one building society. A second was registered in late 2019. The Republic of Ireland had around 40 building societies at the mid-20th century peak. Many of these were very small and, as

2300-441: Is those who joined societies by lodging minimum amounts of £100 or so in the hope of profiting from a distribution of surplus after demutualisation. The deregulating Building Societies Act 1986 contained an anti-carpetbagger provision in the form of a two-year rule. This prescribed a qualifying period of two years before savers could participate in a residual claim. But, before the 1989 Abbey National Building Society demutualisation,

2392-509: The Building Societies Association . Ten building societies of the United Kingdom demutualised between 1989 and 2000, either becoming a bank or being acquired by a larger bank. By 2008, every building society that floated on the stock market in the wave of demutualisations of the 1980s and 1990s had either been sold to a conventional bank, or been nationalised . The following is an incomplete list of building societies in

2484-726: The Clydesdale Bank branding. Virgin Money's shareholders approved the deal on 22 May and it is expected to complete by the end of the year. On 31 May, the Competition and Markets Authority said that they would be investigating the proposed merger regarding the potential lessening of competition within the banking sector in the UK. On 19 July, the Competition and Markets Authority approved the acquisition. On 1 October, Nationwide completed its acquisition of Virgin Money, meaning one in three people in

2576-566: The English Midlands was established in Leeds in 1785. Most of the original societies were fully terminating , where they would be dissolved when all members had a house: the last of them, First Salisbury and District Perfect Thrift Building Society , was wound up in March 1980. In the 1830s and 1840s a new development took place with the permanent building society , where the society continued on

2668-573: The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), but Nationwide and Yorkshire building societies negotiated a temporary change to the terms of the FSCS to protect members of the societies they acquired in late 2008/early 2009. The amended terms allowed former members of multiple societies which merge into one to maintain multiple entitlements to FSCS protection until 30 September 2009 (later extended to 30 December 2010), so (for example)

2760-582: The Golden Cross inn, in 1775. Members of Ketley's society paid a monthly subscription to a central pool of funds which was used to finance the building of houses for members, which in turn acted as collateral to attract further funding to the society, enabling further construction. By 1781 three more societies had been established in Birmingham, with a fourth in the nearby town of Dudley ; and 19 more formed in Birmingham between 1782 and 1795. The first outside

2852-569: The main distribution frame (MDF) in the exchange and ending at the network termination point (NTP) at the end user's premises. Openreach also manages the connections between the MDF and the BT Wholesale / local-loop unbundling (LLU) termination points located in the exchange, often referred to as jumper connections. In March 2017, after various negotiations with, and demands from, Ofcom, BT plc agreed to divest Openreach's staff and non-network assets into

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2944-510: The BT chief executive. The functional separation of Openreach from BT has had mixed results, according to economists J. Gregory Sidak and Andrew Vassallo, who have argued that while Openreach’s creation produced the short-run benefit of lower prices, it also led to long-run costs, such as declines in telecommunications investment, customer satisfaction, and measures of the United Kingdom’s global competitiveness in telecommunications. Today,

3036-623: The British Co-operative Union. The new name was put to a member vote, with members voting 135,675 to 15,585 in favour. In 1987, the Northampton-based Anglia Building Society merged with Nationwide. The new society was known as Nationwide Anglia Building Society at first, but the Anglia name was dropped in 1991. In 1992, Nationwide moved its head office to Nationwide House, Pipers Way, Swindon. It had been operating

3128-634: The CEO's compensation rising 45% to £2.25 million by 2012 the board's levels of pay attracted criticism in The Guardian , and The Huffington Post . Nationwide has also had to pay out over £473 million of compensation to customers for the mis-selling of PPI. Nationwide had to scrap its intentions to pursue a digital business current account in April 2020, due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic . The society has said

3220-620: The CPs. They make 80,800 provision visits on copper, fibre and TV, and manage 90,000 repairs to its copper, fibre and broadband networks every week, remove around 40,000 unused cable connections from its exchanges and provide another 75,000 every day. Every week they also deal with 650 network breakdowns due to damage, theft and weather, test 12,000 poles and replace 920, replace 85 cables and street cabinets, fix 100 low wires and connect another 3,000 newsite plots to its network. In 2009, BT announced that Openreach would connect 2.5 million British homes to

3312-462: The Chinese company access to the UK's critical communications network without ministerial oversight, saying they were "deeply shocked" that BT did not inform government that they were allowing Huawei and ZTE , which both have ties to the Chinese military, unfettered access to critical national systems. Furthermore, ministers discovered that the agency with responsibility to ensure Chinese equipment and code

3404-460: The Irish commercial banks began to originate residential mortgages, the small building societies ceased to be competitive. Most merged or dissolved or, in the case of First Active plc , converted into conventional banks. The last remaining building societies, EBS Building Society and Irish Nationwide Building Society , demutualised and were transferred or acquired into Bank subsidiaries in 2011 following

3496-585: The Nationwide banner over the next 6 years with the Virgin Money brand eventually disappearing. Nationwide intends to remain as a building society and for the "medium-term" the Virgin Money business would remain its own legal entity with its own banking licence. Nationwide aims to not make any material changes to Virgin Money's 7,300 employees "in the near term". Virgin Money currently issue Scottish bank notes under

3588-543: The Registrar of Building Societies under the Building Societies Act 1965. Registration as a building society is merely a process of establishing the entity as a corporation. It is largely a formality, and easily achieved, as the capital requirement is minimal (20 members must be issued shares of not less than NZ$ 1,000 each, for a total minimum foundation share capital of NZ$ 200,000). As regards prudential supervision,

3680-407: The UK are members of the Building Societies Association . At the start of 2008, there were 59 building societies in the UK, with total assets exceeding £360 billion. The number of societies in the UK fell by four during 2008 due to a series of mergers brought about, to a large extent, by the consequences of the financial crisis of 2007–2008 . There were three further mergers in each of 2009 and 2010,

3772-656: The UK had lower average speeds than Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Belgium, but higher average speeds than Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Openreach has also received a high number of customer complaints relating to poor service. It does not communicate directly with members of the public, but only with their service providers. BT have been accused of abusing their Openreach monopoly, which generated almost 35% of operating profits in 2016, particularly by underinvesting in

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3864-538: The UK have a connection to Nationwide. Nationwide reported a £2.3 billion gain from its acquisition of Virgin Money, though its profits declined. Pre-tax profit dropped to £568 million for the six months to September, down from £989 million, partly due to its £100 Fairer Share Payment and competitive savings rates. CEO Debbie Crosbie noted that future profits from Virgin Money would benefit customers. Virgin Money's profit rose to £558 million, driven by cost cuts. Richard Branson , Virgin Money's founder, made £724 million from

3956-553: The UK intelligence community initiated an investigation aimed at Huawei, with increasing urgency after the US, Canada and Australia prevented the company from operating in their countries. Although BT had notified the UK government in 2003 of Huawei's interest in their £10 billion network upgrade contract, what they did not do was raise the security implications as BT failed to explain that the Chinese company would have unfettered access to critical infrastructure. On 16 December 2012 David Cameron

4048-538: The UK's broadband infrastructure, charging high prices and providing poor customer service. In January 2016, a cross-party report by the British Infrastructure Group of MPs , working from data from the Office for National Statistics , found that around 5.7 million broadband customers in the UK had internet connections that did not reach Ofcom's acceptable minimum speed of 10 Mbit/s. Around 3.5 million of

4140-470: The United Kingdom that no longer exist independently, since they either merged with or were taken over by other organisations. They may still have an active presence on the high street (or online) as a trading name or as a distinct brand. This is typically because brands will often build up specific reputations and attract certain clientele, and this can continue to be marketed successfully. In Australia, building societies evolved along British lines. Following

4232-474: The United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, and formerly in Ireland and several Commonwealth countries, including South Africa as mutual banks. They are similar to credit unions , but rather than promoting thrift and offering unsecured and business loans, the purpose of a building society is to provide home mortgages to members. Borrowers and depositors are society members, setting policy and appointing directors on

4324-427: The balance and taken account of in formulation of policy. They were a nuisance to be dealt with by the costly use of public relations advisers and legal processes. In the end, after a number of large demutualisations, and pressure from carpetbaggers moving from one building society to another to cream off the windfalls, most of the societies whose management wished to keep them mutual modified their rules of membership in

4416-528: The building society into a bank. Society members again proposed a resolution in 2001 for another vote by Nationwide members to convert the society to a bank . The resolution was rejected by the Nationwide board on legal grounds. In the wake of the financial crisis of 2007–08 , executive pay practices came under increasing scrutiny at Nationwide as in the rest of the financial sector. The Building Society Members' Association began to campaign against acceptance of remuneration reports at AGMs in 2009, and with

4508-883: The business closed at the end of the year. Nationwide announced it would be building a new community at Oakfield in Swindon working in partnership with Swindon Borough Council. Planning permission for the 239 houses was granted in 2019. The homes will be EPC A rated and built on a not-for-profit model. In 2021 the development won the ‘Building for a Healthy Life’ prize as part of the Housing Design Awards. In March 2022, Kevin Parry replaced David Roberts as chairman; and in June 2022, Debbie Crosbie , who had been CEO of TSB Bank , succeeded Joe Garner , as chief executive. In October 2023 Nationwide Building Society committed to its biggest rebrand since 1987, replacing its iconic ‘village icon’. The move

4600-606: The company is structured such that it is a wholly owned subsidiary of British Telecommunications plc (BT), which itself includes the four separately managed businesses and virtually all other assets of the BT Group. Field Telecommunications engineers install and maintain the physical network wiring from the telephone exchange into end customers' premises on behalf of 537 communication providers (CPs) which sell services directly to end customers. Openreach engineers visit around 29,500 homes and offices every weekday on behalf of its customers,

4692-463: The country had a building society named after that town. Over succeeding decades the number of societies has decreased, as various societies merged to form larger ones, often renaming in the process, and other societies opted for demutualisation followed by – in the great majority of cases – eventual takeover by a listed bank. Most of the existing larger building societies are the result of the mergers of many smaller societies. All building societies in

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4784-450: The courts found against the two-year rule after legal action brought by Abbey National itself to circumvent the intent of the legislators. After this the legislation did prevent a cash distribution to members of less than two years standing, but the same result was obtained by permitting the issue of 'free' shares in the acquiring plc, saleable for cash. The Thatcher Conservative government declined to introduce amending legislation to make good

4876-452: The customers affected lived in rural areas . The Digital Economy Act 2017 originally included a proposal for a legal right to a minimum download speed but this was dropped before the bill became law. The government subsequently made a proposal for a universal service obligation (USO) granting remote households the right to request broadband speeds of at least 10 Mbit/s. This was countered by an offer made by BT for Openreach to provide

4968-404: The deal, which includes £310 million for Nationwide's use of the Virgin Money brand for up to six years. Nationwide is committed to staying mutual and is keen to emphasise that it has members rather than shareholders. Its mutual status has been challenged. Nationwide was by far the largest British building society that did not convert to a bank in the wave of demutualisations that occurred from

5060-494: The defect in the 'two-year rule'. Building societies, like mutual life insurers, arose as people clubbed together to address a common need interest; in the case of the building societies, this was housing and members were originally both savers and borrowers. But it very quickly became clear that 'outsider' savers were needed whose motive was profit through interest on deposits. Thus permanent building societies quickly became mortgage banks and in such institutions there always existed

5152-470: The early building societies were based in taverns or coffeehouses , which had become the focus for a network of clubs and societies for co-operation and the exchange of ideas among Birmingham's highly active citizenry as part of the movement known as the Midlands Enlightenment . The first building society to be established was Ketley's Building Society , founded by Richard Ketley, the landlord of

5244-1241: The effects of the Irish financial crisis . Leeds Building Society Ireland and Nationwide UK (Ireland) were Irish branches of building societies based in the United Kingdom; both have since ceased all Irish operations. Irish Industrial Building Society (1969–1975) Irish Nationwide Building Society (1975 – Feb 2011) loan book Anglo Irish Bank (February 2011–June 2011) Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (July 2011–February 2013 ) EBS Building Society (1991–2011) Irish Permanent Benefit Building Society (1888–1940) Irish Permanent Building Society (1940–1994) Permanent TSB Group Holdings plc (1999–) merged with TSB Bank, 2001 Permanent TSB Group Holdings plc Irish Civil Service and General (Permanent Benefit) Building Society (1867–1874) Irish Civil Service (Permanent) Building Society (1874–1969) Irish Civil Service Building Society (1969–1984) First National Building Society (1960–1998) acquired by Ulster Bank 2004 and retired in 2009 In Jamaica , three building societies compete with commercial banks and credit unions for most consumer financial services: In New Zealand , building societies are registered with

5336-448: The end of World War II , the terminating model was revived to fund returning servicemen's need for new houses. Hundreds were created with government seed capital, whereby the capital was returned to the government and the terminating societies retained the interest accumulated. Once all the seed funds were loaned, each terminating society could reapply for more seed capital to the point where they could re-lend their own funds and thus became

5428-419: The end of mutuality brought joint stock company (plc) style remuneration committee pay standards and share options. Share options for management of converting societies appear to be a powerful factor in management calculation. Rasmusen (1988) refers to this in the following terms: " ... perks do not rise in proportion to [mutual] bank size. If a mutual is large, or is expected to grow if it can raise capital by

5520-651: The financial year 2021/2022, Nationwide had assets of around £272.4 billion compared to £483 billion for the entire building society sector, making it larger than the remaining 42 British building societies combined. It is a member of the Building Societies Association , the Council of Mortgage Lenders and Co-operatives UK . The Society's origins lie in the Co-operative Permanent Building Society , founded in 1884. Based at New Oxford House, High Holborn, it changed its name in 1970 after deciding to leave

5612-546: The first major conversion of the Abbey in 1989, Kay (1991) observed: [T]he paradox of the Abbey members who campaigned against flotation [conversion to a shareholder-owned bank] of their building society. They were fighting to preserve a degree of accountability to the membership which the management of the Society patently did not feel. For incumbent management, the contrary views of some of their members were not matters to be weighed in

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5704-563: The higher speed FTTP network service by 2012 and 25% of the UK. In July 2010 Openreach signed an £ 800 million contract with ECI Telecom to help it service and create a fibre-optic network serving 18 million households in the UK. The deal was the largest in ECI's history. However, by the end of September 2015 only 250,000 homes were connected. Instead, BT offered an "FTTP on Demand" product. In 2017, Openreach proposed offering super-fast fibre broadband to 10 million homes by 2025, using fibre to

5796-495: The infrastructure and stating that it is too slow to fix faults and install new lines. BT Group's acquisition of mobile phone operator EE , which received regulatory approval in October 2015, was partly funded using £1.7bn of Openreach's revenues. An investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority said it was not a competition issue but a matter for Ofcom, and Ofcom undertook its own enquiry. In December 2015 Ofcom indicated it

5888-450: The infrastructure for 99% of UK premises to receive download speeds of at least 10 Mbit/s by 2020, at a total cost of between £450 million and £600 million. In March 2017 an investigation by Ofcom concluded that there were regulatory breaches at Openreach regarding the delivery of high-speed Ethernet cable services between January 2013 and December 2014. Contracts required compensation payments to be paid to other telecoms providers if

5980-619: The larger societies made such proposals to their members and all were accepted. Some listed on the London Stock Exchange , while others were acquired by larger financial groups. The process began with the demutualisation of the Abbey National Building Society in 1989. Then, from 1995 to late 1999, eight societies demutualised accounting for two-thirds of building societies assets as at 1994. Five of these societies became joint stock banks (plc), one merged with another and

6072-514: The largest (such as Advance and St George ) attained the status of banks. More recent conversions have included Heritage Bank which converted from building society to bank in 2011, Hume in 2014, while Wide Bay Building Society became Auswide Bank and IMB followed suit in 2015, and Greater Building Society became Greater Bank in 2016. Building societies converting to banks are no longer required to demutualise. A particular difference between Australian building societies and those elsewhere,

6164-426: The late 1980s to the late 1990s. In 1998, society members seeking a windfall, branded as carpetbaggers by the UK media, meant Nationwide members had to vote on whether to demutualise the society and float on the London Stock Exchange . The attempt failed, despite media reports of possible pay-outs to members of around £1,000 to £1,500 each, as Nationwide members voted by a narrow margin of 33,700 against converting

6256-411: The late 1990s. The method usually adopted were membership rules to ensure that anyone newly joining a society would, for the first few years, be unable to get any profit out of a demutualisation. With the chance of a quick profit removed, the wave of demutualisations came to an end in 2000. One academic study ( Heffernan 2003 ) found that demutualised societies' pricing behaviour on deposits and mortgages

6348-594: The network assets continuing to be owned by BT plc for land-contract reasons, and with Openreach Limited being wholly owned by BT Group plc, BT plc's parent holding company. In July 2017, Openreach began removing the BT element from its logo, and in September 2017 Openreach removed BT branding from its website. On 14 June 2018, Ofcom published a report titled "Progress on delivering a more independent Openreach" which found that "there has been broadly satisfactory progress towards legal separation, but some steps have still not been completed". On 31 July 2020, Openreach released

6440-438: The opportunity to claim was presented by management the savers in particular could be relied upon to seize it. There were sufficient hard-up borrowers to take the inducement offered them by management (in spite of few simple sums sufficing to demonstrate that they were probably going to end up effectively paying back the inducement). ( Tayler 2003 ) Management promoting demutualisation also thereby met managerial objectives because

6532-422: The other four were taken over by plcs (in two cases after the mutual had previously converted to a plc). As Tayler (2003) mentions, demutualisation moves succeeded immediately because neither Conservative nor Labour party UK governments created a framework which put obstacles in the way of demutualisation. Political acquiescence in demutualisation was clearest in the case of the position on ' carpetbaggers ', that

6624-516: The pandemic has driven down the medium-term interest rates , which the society believes has made the project unviable. Nationwide has committed to return the £50M grant from the Banking Competition Remedies scheme, which distributes funding that Royal Bank of Scotland was ordered to set aside as a condition of its 2009 bailout . The project is estimated to have cost members £70 million, but Nationwide have said that all staff working on

6716-504: The possibility of allowing Openreach to deal directly with consumers, which would have required the approval of Ofcom, but withdrew the proposal, partly due to objections from other service providers. Openreach are accountable to each of the telecoms providers, as well as Ofcom . In July 2014, Ofcom completed a review of Openreach's service, resulting in mandated performance levels on key services. In August 2015, Labour MP Chris Bryant called for Openreach to be split from BT, criticising

6808-476: The premises ( FTTP ) technology. In June 2017 Openreach demonstrated its version of G.fast technology, using "side pods" that can be bolted on to existing cabinets to offer potential UK broadband speeds of up to 100 Mbit/s. The technology is designed for distances of less than 500 metres (547 yards) between the cabinet and the property, and is cheaper to implement than FTTP because it does not involve laying fibre cables, although its maximum speed capacity

6900-539: The project will be redeployed elsewhere. It still provides some business savings accounts. When restrictions were lifted following the COVID-19 pandemic , Nationwide stated that its office-based staff could choose whether to work from home or return to the office. In December 2023 the building society announced that employees would be required to come into the office for two days per week from April 2024. Nationwide Building Society provides financial services both directly, and through 686 branches (as of 2023). Nationwide

6992-567: The purpose of providing equal access to BT’s local access network and backhaul products. Ofcom previously argued that BT had significant market power in the British telecommunications market, specifically in residential voice services, business retail services, leased lines, wholesale international services, and wholesale broadband and fixed narrowband services. The resulting organisation, Openreach, opened for business in January 2006 and reported directly to

7084-409: The second half of 2022, was A1 with Moody's , A+ with Standard & Poor's and A+ with Fitch Ratings . Nationwide owns several subsidiary companies, including: Building society A building society is a financial institution owned by its members as a mutual organization , which offers banking and related financial services , especially savings and mortgage lending . They exist in

7176-422: The security concerns. Huawei is not permitted to supply the telecoms market in the US and a number of other countries because of concerns that its products include " backdoors " which could allow Chinese security services access to the equipment. ZTE , another Chinese company supplying extensive network equipment and subscriber hardware to BT Infinity , also came under scrutiny after the US, Canada, Australia and

7268-447: The services were not delivered on time. However, Ofcom found that there had been a misuse of the terms of contracts allowing the compensation payments to be reduced. BT was fined £42 million and agreed to pay the telecoms providers involved as much as £300 million in compensation. Telecoms provider customers who have problems cannot directly contact Openreach and have to go indirectly through their service provider. In 2015 BT consulted on

7360-425: The supply of FTTP by alternative network ISPs. By May 2019, when it had connected 1.2 million premises to FTTP, Openreach aimed to have connected 4 million premises by 2021 and 15 million by around 2025. Since its founding, Openreach has been criticised for its broadband speeds and for what its critics regard as the decreasing competitiveness of the UK's internet infrastructure. A study conducted in 2015 found that

7452-412: The time required and costs involved in addressing pension, lease and covenant issues. Instead, Ofcom decided that Openreach should cease to be a functional division of BT and instead become a legally separate company within the BT group, something which Ofcom said could "be implemented within months". On 29 November 2016 Ofcom ordered BT to legally separate its Openreach division, with Openreach becoming

7544-698: The unconnected and now-defunct Irish Nationwide Building Society . It ceased all operations in the Irish Republic in 2017. In 2012, the Society announced that it would integrate the Cheshire, Derbyshire and Dunfermline building Societies into Nationwide. The Societies had operated under their own brands as divisions of the Society. The rebranding of each business was phased, with the Dunfermline first to be merged in June 2014. The Cheshire and Derbyshire followed in October and November 2014 respectively. On 22 May 2015, it

7636-505: The year. The following year, withdrawals from most cash machines owned by UK banks were made free for customers of all banks and building societies throughout the UK. In 2007, Nationwide members voted at its Annual General Meeting to donate at least 1% of pre-tax profits to charitable activities each year. Nationwide completed a merger with Portman Building Society on 28 August 2007, creating a mutual body with assets of over £160 billion and around 13 million members. Portman's earliest component

7728-513: Was announced that the Society's chief executive, Graham Beale, intended to retire. On 16 November 2015, Nationwide announced that Joe Garner, CEO of Openreach , would succeed Graham as Nationwide CEO in Spring 2016. Joe Garner joined the Society as chief executive on 5 April 2016. In May 2016, the Society confirmed that it would be closing its subsidiary on the Isle of Man , Nationwide International, following

7820-474: Was established through the amalgamation of approximately 250 smaller building societies over its history. Among the most notable mergers were the acquisition of Anglia Building Society in 1987 and the Portman Building Society in 2007. As of 2022, Nationwide ranked as the second largest provider of household savings and mortgages in the UK, holding a 10.3% market share in current accounts . For

7912-662: Was examining four options for Openreach's future: maintaining the current arrangement, more deregulation, structural separation from BT, or adjusting the current system. Keeping the status quo was said to be unlikely. The initial conclusions of Ofcom's investigation, which were published in February 2016, did not require BT to sell Openreach. In January 2016, a report backed by 121 cross-party MPs stated Ofcom should force BT to sell off its Openreach division to open up competition. Nevertheless, Ofcom's final decision, published in July 2016, did not require BT to sell Openreach, primarily due to

8004-532: Was expected to be worth approximately £350 million, building on an existing partnership of nearly nine years. When Carillion went into liquidation in January 2018, Nationwide took on 297 staff previously employed by the contractor. In April 2017, the Society confirmed that it would be closing its subsidiary on the Republic of Ireland, Nationwide UK (Ireland), following a review of its business. Its branch at 13 Merrion Row, Dublin 2 closed on 31 May 2017. The remainder of

8096-700: Was more favourable to shareholders than to customers, with the remaining mutual building societies offering consistently better rates. The Building Societies (Funding) and Mutual Societies (Transfers) Act 2007 , known as the Butterfill Act, was passed in 2007 giving building societies greater powers to merge with other companies. These powers have been used by the Britannia in 2009 and Kent Reliance in 2011 leading to their demutualisation. Prior to 31 December 2010, deposits with building societies of up to £50,000 per individual, per institution, were normally protected by

8188-475: Was part of a wider commitment to maintain a High Street presence as many banks continue to close branches. The move will see all 605 branches receive investment to enable the building society to protect face-to-face customer interactions. On 7 March 2024 Nationwide announced that they had made an offer to buy Virgin Money UK for £2.9 billion. Under the terms of the deal the resulting company would be rebranded under

8280-501: Was supplied with a in-depth report indicating that the intelligence services had very grave doubts regarding Huawei, in that the UK governmental, military, business community and private citizen's privacy may be under serious threat. Subsequently, BT's Infinity programme and other projects underwent urgent review. On 7 June 2013, a report of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament concluded that BT should never have allowed

8372-726: Was the Provident Union Building Society founded in Ramsbury, Wiltshire in 1846. In the financial crisis of 2007–2008 , the Nationwide acted to safeguard the mutual sector, acquiring the ailing Cheshire and Derbyshire building societies in September 2008, followed by the Dunfermline Building Society on 30 March 2009. On 24 March 2009, Nationwide Building Society opened a direct savings branch in Dublin , Ireland called Nationwide UK (Ireland), to distinguish it from

8464-483: Was threat-free was entirely staffed by Huawei employees. Subsequently, the committee confirmed that in case of an attack on the UK there was nothing at this point that could be done to stop Chinese infiltration attacking critical national infrastructure. In 2014 the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Board was set up to test and monitor Huawei's products on an ongoing basis in an attempt to address

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