Do building societies really give better value for money to their members?

One way of looking at how much value a customer is getting from a financial organisation is to look at the difference between the interest rate a customer receives for their savings and the interest rate they pay on their mortgage. The narrower the margin between the two, gained by high savings rates and low mortgage rates, the better the value. Generally building societies operate on lower margins than the banks that used to be building societies. Many building societies operate on margins of around 1%, whereas the converted institutions tend to have margins above 2%.