Building Society
A Building Society is a non-profit mutual organisation set up for the provision of mortgages to it’s members. Mutual means that the building society is owned by the contributors themselves (all the people who have savings with the society) and these people are able to share the profits and benefits that accrue.
In 1986, a change in UK law enabled the building societies to offer many more financial products such as insurance and unsecured loans, in order to effectively compete with the banks. It has happened fairly often recently that a building society will demutualise, in order for shareholders to take the profits and it will then act just like any other bank.
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