Covers a range of topics relating to mortgages and the wider housing market.
Covers issues relating to savings accounts and payments.
Covers developments in conduct of business regulation
Covers issues relating to the corporate governance and constitution of building societies.
People related matters such as talent development, apprenticeships and diversity.
Internal and external accounting assurance and matters relating to tax.
The regulation and supervision of firms to ensure their safety and soundness under the remit of the Prudential Regulation Authority.
A new legal aid scheme to support borrowers at risk of repossession (member only content).
A wide range of statistics relating to the UK mortgage and housing markets.
Research, analysis and guidance about our members and the issues that affect them.
Retail savings data including net receipts and deposits, ISAs and interest rates.
Operational and financial information about building societies. Includes AGM & financial results and remuneration details.
Submission and publication deadlines for BSA data and reports.
Bank Rate cut to 4.75% but pace of rate cuts expected to moderate in wake of Budget
News and views on topical issues from the BSA and guests.
View our latest press releases and comment here.
The BSA's quarterly magazine covers whats happening in the world of building societies, credit unions and the wider financial services sector.
A quarterly survey that assesses consumer sentiment regarding the UK property market.
View biographies and download photos of the BSA's key spokespeople
BSA speeches from events and seminars
View the latest webinars, training and other events open to members, associates and other stakeholders
View our latest BSA Annual Conference and comment here.
View our latest Past events & summaries and comment here.
Learn how to promote your event to the BSA's membership.
Employment Rights Bill Webinar (18th November 2024)
Find factsheets on mortgages, savings and the building society sector.
Track building societies that no longer exists and get a link to its successor's website.
Find mortgage instructions and specific requirements setting out individual building society policies.
The UK Savings Week campaign aims to get people engaged in saving.
Toolkits to develop Workplace Savings are available here.
Here you can find our publications, responses to consultation documents, mortgage instructions, statistics and sector job vacancies.
Find out more about the BSA and the sector.
Contact details for each of our 49 members.
Our Associate members include a wide range of companies from insurers, banks, accountants, solicitors, and other business suppliers to BSA members.
The National Credit Union Forum (NCUF) is the Credit Union Committee of the BSA.
View biographies and download photos of our key spokespeople
Vacancies for senior management, executive and other positions at the BSA and its member organisations
Find out the wide range of benefits of joining the BSA as an associate member.
The Building Societies Association is the voice of the UK's building societies.
Introduction
The Building Societies Association represents mutual lenders and deposit takers in the UK including all 45 UK building societies. Mutual lenders and deposit takers have total assets of over £375 billion and, together with their subsidiaries, hold residential mortgages of £245 billion, 20% of the total outstanding in the UK. They hold more than £250 billion of retail deposits, accounting for 22% of all such deposits in the UK. Mutual deposit takers account for 31% of cash ISA balances. They employ approximately 50,000 full and part-time staff and operate through approximately 2,000 branches.
Key points
1. We have seen the response made by Skipton Building Society and endorse wholly the contents thereof. We agree there has to be consistency with the UK/US IGA in all aspects of the CD IGAs. While there may be slightly different obligations under the IGAs with the US, the more similar the interpretations for all IGAs, the lower the likelihood of any errors. Any deviation, however small, increases the cost of systems and compliance work for our members.
2. We therefore agree that the crown dependencies’ intergovernmental agreements should be aligned as closely as possible with the UK/US IGA. This will help ensure that our members’ systems development work for the US/ UK IGA will deal with most of the requirements for the other IGAs. It follows that we believe the FATCA IGAs and G5+ guidance should be in the same document.
3. We would also like HMRC to make clear the status of the G5+ IGAS in relation to the EU Savings and Tax Directive: for example, whether they will replace or be in addition to the EUSD requirements.
4. It is possible that a few of our members have reportable accounts under a UK/ CD IGA but not under the UK/ US agreement. We do not know how many; we do not hold that information. But we can say that many of our members are at least part the way through their due diligence procedures for the purposes of the UK/ US agreement. Some are already changing onboarding processes, T&Cs etc in light of the revised implementation date of July 2014. While we have no figures, it is true to say that there will be significant additional costs attached to any reporting of data to the CDs. This is clearly unwelcome in light of the burden imposed by the UK/ US agreement and other new initiatives imposed by other regulators, for example, the forthcoming CRD 4 package. These hit smaller institutions such as building societies disproportionately hard.