Bank or Building Society

luvpump

who can say

opinions4u

My first job was with a building society in 1986. There were 935 of them then.

There are 50 now.

Only a dozen or so demutualised (not a rip-roaring success). The other 800+ disappeared through a mixture of logical mergers and mergers of absolute financial necessity to stop members losing money.

While accepting the absolutely accurate point that the societies aren't subject to the scrutiny of a run on their shareprice, they are often run for the benefit of overpaid executives who have a vested interest in talking up the success of the operation.

A society can raise 50% of its funds wholesale. Strip out the commercial lending activities of HBOS and focus on their mortgage book. Less than 50% of that is funded wholesale.

The pink fluffy wrapper of mutuality can disguise poorly run operations hidden from the professional scrutiny of city investors.

Without digging underneath those wrappers, it is absolutely impossible to say if one organisation is safer than another - and dangerous to speculate.

quids_in_2

HI
I was thinking about transfering my savings from a nationwide isa to a nat west one.
The interest rate for the 1st year is 6.67% for the amount I have to invest and nationwide are only paying 4.90%
This would make a difference over the year amounting to a weeks wages!
Reading the stuff on this thread about banks vs building societies, I am in two minds as what to do? Your savers opinions would be most welcomed.