A building society is a financial institution owned by its members as a mutual organization. Building societies offer banking and related financial services, especially savings and mortgage lending. Building societies exist in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, and used to exist in Ireland and several Commonwealth countries. They are similar to credit unions in organisation, though few enforce a common bond. However, 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 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.
Halifax is a British banking brand operating as a trading division of Bank of Scotland, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group.
Northern Rock, formerly the Northern Rock Building Society, was a British bank. Based at Regent Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, Northern Rock was originally a building society. It demutualised and became Northern Rock bank in 1997, when it floated on the London Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol NRK.
Nationwide Building Society is a British mutual financial institution, the seventh largest cooperative financial institution and the largest building society in the world with over 16 million members. Its headquarters are in Swindon, England.
Alliance & Leicester plc was a British bank and former building society, formed by the merger in 1985 of the Alliance Building Society and the Leicester Building Society. The business demutualised in the middle of 1997, when it was floated on the London Stock Exchange. It was listed in the FTSE 250 Index, and had been listed in the FTSE 100 Index from April 1997 until June 2008.
Ulster Bank is a large retail bank, and one of the traditional Big Four Irish clearing banks. The Ulster Bank Group is subdivided into two separate legal entities: National Westminster Bank Plc, trading as Ulster Bank ; and Ulster Bank Ireland DAC. The headquarters of Ulster Bank in the Republic of Ireland are located on George's Quay, Dublin, whilst the headquarters of Ulster Bank Northern Ireland are in Donegall Square East, Belfast, and it maintains a large sector of the financial services in both the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
Permanent TSB Group Holdings plc, formerly Irish Life and Permanent plc is a provider of personal financial services in Ireland. Irish Life Assurance plc and the Irish Permanent Building Society merged to form the Irish Life and Permanent Group in 1999 and the merged entity acquired the Trustee Savings Bank in 2001. The group has no connection to the UK's TSB Bank.
ACC Loan Management Limited, formerly ACCBank plc, was originally a commercial bank in Ireland that focused on agriculture and SME lending, and later became a company that focussed on managing the lending facilities of its existing clients. The bank had its origins in the Agricultural Credit Corporation set up in 1927 in the Irish Free State to finance agriculture; the bank was successful and led to the creation of the Industrial Credit Company, which was modelled on it and provided finance to industry. In the early 1990s, the company name was changed from "Agricultural Credit Corporation plc" to "ACCBank plc" in order to signify that the company was then targeting more than simply agricultural customers. In early 2002, the bank was sold by the Irish Government to Rabobank, it was one of the three entities of the Rabobank (Ireland).
ICICI Bank Limited is an Indian multinational bank and financial services company headquartered in Mumbai. It offers a wide range of banking products and financial services for corporate and retail customers through a variety of delivery channels and specialized subsidiaries in the areas of investment banking, life, non-life insurance, venture capital and asset management.
Demutualization is the process by which a customer-owned mutual organization (mutual) or co-operative changes legal form to a joint stock company. It is sometimes called stocking or privatization. As part of the demutualization process, members of a mutual usually receive a "windfall" payout, in the form of shares in the successor company, a cash payment, or a mixture of both. Mutualization or mutualisation is the opposite process, wherein a shareholder-owned company is converted into a mutual organization, typically through takeover by an existing mutual organization. Furthermore, re-mutualization depicts the process of aligning or refreshing the interest and objectives of the members of the mutual society.
Egg was an internet bank headquartered in Derby, that is now a trading name of Yorkshire Building Society. Egg was born out of the banking arm in the United Kingdom of Prudential plc, which was established in 1996, and the Egg brand was launched in October 1998. The first online credit card was launched in September 1999.
Tesco Bank is a British retail bank which was formed in July 1997, and which has been wholly owned by Tesco plc since 2008. The bank was formed as part of a 50:50 joint venture between The Royal Bank of Scotland and Tesco, the largest supermarket in the United Kingdom.
EBS d.a.c. is a small financial institution in Ireland registered as a designated activity company. In June 2022, the Irish government's Central Bank of Ireland reprimanded and fined EBS d.a.c. trading as EBS €13.4m for a series of significant and long-running failings in the treatment of its mortgage customers, between August 2004 and June 2020. As a result of this investigation alone, the EBS has admitted to 36 separate regulatory breaches.
Bristol & West (B&W) was a former mutual building society in the United Kingdom (UK), one of the first to be demutualised to become a publicly traded bank in 1997. Bristol & West had its headquarters in Bristol, England, UK. B&W became a division of the UK arm of the Bank of Ireland in 1997.
St. James's Place plc, formerly St. James's Place Capital plc, is a British investment management company. The head office is in Cirencester, in Gloucestershire, and there are over twenty other offices in the United Kingdom. It is a combined adviser, fund manager and life insurance business. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It is the largest company of its kind in the UK; In 2021 it had £135 billion in funds under management.
Santander UK plc is a British bank, wholly owned by the Spanish Santander Group. Santander UK plc manages its affairs autonomously, with its own local management team, responsible solely for its performance.
TSB Bank plc is a retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom and a subsidiary of Sabadell Group.
Marks & Spencer Financial Services plc, trading as M&S Bank, is a retail bank operating in the United Kingdom. It was originally formed as the financial services division of the British retailer Marks & Spencer in 1985 and adopted its current name in 2012.
Post Office Money is a financial services brand operated by Post Office Ltd which provides credit cards, current accounts, insurance products, mortgages and personal loans to customers in the United Kingdom through Post Office branches, the internet and telephone.
Banco Nacional de BoliviaS.A. (BNB) (English: National Bank of Bolivia) is a Bolivian bank and financial institution headquartered in Sucre, Bolivia. Founded in 1871, it is one of Bolivia's oldest banks. It is also the country's second largest bank by total assets.
