CarpetBagging- The best accounts to open at each Building Society

planteria

Froggitt wrote: »

I read yesterday that if the Co-op Bank PIB holders vote no, they Government may nationalise Co-op Bank. No different to what they did with Bradford and Bingley or Northern Rock.

When the Nationwide members narrowly voted against demutualisation in 2000 (?), they turned down roughly £1,500 per member. Its virtually worthless now IMHO.......they've spunked most of their reserves up a wall, and have been subsidising borrowers for years.

At least the other converted societies, failed or not, lined the pockets of their members on their way out the door.

they did. Nationwide's board have lined their own pockets with gold whilst spunking over the years though.

and nor can i telexuser. perhaps, if Co-op Bank were to go, and Nationwide were to follow, the mutual savings/mortgages sector could change dramatically.

EarthBoy

Froggitt wrote: »

If they want to convert, they will have to waive the rule, otherwise what is probably now a significant majority of signaway customers will vote against it.

Would they vote against it, -or would they simply not bother to vote at all if there was nothing in it for them? There would be no point voting against unless they were either against the principle of conversion itself, or unless they thought they could force a change of mind and guarantee themselves a payout. And this is presuming that a payout is on the cards for the non-signaway members, which isn't guaranteed, -they aren't compulsory. Most of the recent mergers/takeovers haven't had any payouts and they've been voted through by the members.

In urgent cases the Building Societies Act gives the FSA/PRA the power to bypass the members and order a merger/takeover, although I don't think the Nationwide is in quite that bad a state to warrant this yet.

pqrdef wrote: »

Well doing nothing isn't an option, so if the voters won't vote for something, the government will have to invoke some powers we didn't know it had and impose a solution.

The government can always give itself new powers on the spot. When Northern Rock went belly up they passed emergency legislation enabling the creation of a bad bank/good bank, which had never been done before. I believe these were the same powers used when Bradford and Bingley went under, and when the Dunfermline collapsed.

planteria

anyone reckon there will ever be Building Society windfalls again?

talexuser

planteria wrote: »

anyone reckon there will ever be Building Society windfalls again?

Sure, question is when.

It took 70 years to unwind the legislation separating retail from investment banking, arguably bringing on the credit crunch and some kind of repeat of the 30s. Every time a rogue trader almost bankrupts somebody they say they have now put the systems in place etc etc, only to have the same thing over again a few years later. We don't seem to learn enough from history, so when Northern Rock etc is a distant memory greed will take over from common sense and some new "paradigm" will emerge from the latest economic theory fad.

Froggitt

talexuser wrote: »

It took 70 years to unwind the legislation separating retail from investment banking

And it took less than ten years of mis-management to trash a hundred plus years of reserves at the remaining mutual societies.

Converted societies were worth getting on for a couple of grand per member. Theres maybe only one or two societies left worth more than a couple of hundred quid per member.

planteria

Froggitt wrote: »

Theres maybe only one or two societies left worth more than a couple of hundred quid per member.

an interesting point Froggitt. and, in the current climate, the distribution to the members(owners) would be avoided anyway.

Froggitt

I still have my National Counties passport, which was worth about £4,000 back in the day. And Mrs Frogs. Both now with a CANCELLED stamp across all the remaining pages!!!

planteria

i never had a 'passport' with NCBS. was it a really massive passbook? and yes, they had the highest reserves/member i recall. i don't want to accept that i'll never collect a National Counties windfall;)

Froggitt

Nahhhh - it just looked like one of the old blue British passports......all official with a gold leaf logo embossed on the front.

planteria

i'm not old enough to remember blue passports, Frogger