Are Building Societies safer than Banks?

Agri47

baby_boomer wrote: »

Are building societies safer than banks?

MSE thread link - Our MPs have foolishly just removed the most important safeguard and allowed societies to borrow more in the wholesale markets - just like Northern Rock

The stronger banks (Lloyds TSB, HSBC, RBS, Barclays, HBOS) are generally regarded as the safest by the credit rating agencies.

There are weak banks however that need to be avoided - Northern Rock being the obvious example. ICICI also show one of the lower ratings. I would not take too much notice of the Governments temporary measures that exist at the moment as they are unlikely to last for long.

National Savings are safest of all however as they are fully backed by the treasury.

baby_boomer

The Sun asked the building societies & banks to comment on the security of savers' deposits

The BSs were much more forthcoming and reassuring.

Although the West Brom comment could equally have been made by Northern Rock three weeks ago:

"Savers and borrowers with The West Bromwich Building Society need only to look at 10 successive years of record results to know that their money is safe with us"

barak

chris1 wrote: »

Are Building Societies safer than banks, and if so, why?

In theory YES - because whereas the other Banks [as PLCs] have just shown that they couldn't care less what happened to Northern Rock plc [until and unless it became an attractive takeover target], the Building Society movement would not have let any of its members fall by the wayside.