Building Societies in the Financial Services Industry

This book presents an analysis of the role of UK building societies, their strengths and weaknesses, and their contribution to the industry, at a time where public confidence in banking is low. Chapters present the results of an empirical analysis of the

  • PDF / 2,863,297 Bytes
  • 119 Pages / 399.73 x 612.28 pts Page_size
  • 97 Downloads / 195 Views

DOWNLOAD

REPORT


Barbara Casu and Andrew Gall

Building Societies in the Financial Services Industry

Barbara Casu • Andrew Gall

Building Societies in the Financial Services Industry

Barbara Casu Faculty of Finance Cass Business School-City University London, United Kingdom

Andrew Gall Building Societies Association London, United Kingdom

ISBN 978-1-137-60207-7 ISBN 978-1-137-60208-4 DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-60208-4

(eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016942676 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London

FOREWORD

Building societies and, indeed, the mutual concept itself were written off by many in the late 1990s. Those societies that saw themselves as innovative, risk-taking, and entrepreneurial had proudly cast away what they saw as the constraints of their mutual status. By 2000, they were ready to take their full and rightful role in the new, free, globalised financial markets that had been created by new technology and regulatory reform over the previous two decades. A decade later, the ambition, excitement, and sense of self-belief among those who led this change had disappeared. By 2009, not a single one of the ten building societies that had turned themselves into banks retained their individual existence, and a number had been rescued by the taxpayer. In contrast, most of those societies that remained mutual, and fought to reinvent and enhance the meaning of mutuality, survived the financial crisis, and came out of it stronger. One of the most remarkable statistics in this welcome new book by Barbara Casu and Andrew Gall is that between 2011 and 2014, mutual building societies accoun