The report highlights the strong performance of the building society sector over recent years, and anticipates continued growth as it navigates a period of evolution and modernisation. It was launched at an event hosted at Leeds Building Society’s head office, attended by representatives from building societies and key industry stakeholders.
Coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the UK’s first building society and the United Nations’ Year of the Cooperative, the report is published the week before the BSA’s annual conference, taking place in Birmingham on 7th and 8th May. It follows a previous report published by Whitecap in 2021.
The new report is launched against a backdrop of the government expressing support for the mutual sector, including stating its ambition to double its size. The building society sector is already well on course to achieve this, having experienced strong growth in recent years.
The key findings of the research include:
- Continued growth is a key priority for building societies, partly due to market opportunity, but also due to increasing regulatory costs they are facing.
- The building society sector needs to continue to lobby for fair and proportionate regulation, to enable it to compete on a level playing field in highly competitive mortgages and savings markets.
- Investment in technology is an ongoing focus. Artificial intelligence was the most prominent tech theme in the research, although mobile platforms and apps are viewed as the top priority for technology investment over the next five years.
- Building societies are committed to the broker market, with over 60% of survey respondents identifying investment in intermediary-facing digital capabilities as a key focus area in the next 5 years.
- 50% of building society CEOs have changed since 2021, with 4 of the top 10 building societies now led by female CEOs, reflecting enhanced diversity in the sector.
The report is the result of a programme of research undertaken by the Whitecap team over recent months, broken down across strategic themes which were explored via desk research, data analysis, CEO interviews with 25 of the 42 building societies, an online survey, and additional industry stakeholder engagement. The strategic themes included topics such as strategy, mutuality, mortgages, savings, branches, technology, green finance, the future of homebuying, diversification, collaboration, regulation, policy and risk.
The report was produced with the support of sector sponsors including: BJSS, Digilytics, finova, FintechOS, FIS, GDS Link, Mambu, Mast, Monument Technology, Mutual Vision, MQube, nCino, Ohpen, PEXA, Phoebus, RSM UK, SBS, Target Group, Temenos , Unblu, Unisys, and Vilja Solutions.
