I have always had a thing about elephants from childhood days watching Wendy the Elephant on Animal Magic with Jonny Morris, to visiting Wendy at Bristol Zoo when our children were very young.  There is a photograph on the wall at home we took on our honeymoon of a stately row of these great beasts walking across the Maasai Mara in Kenya.  And what better way to characterise the progression of our wonderful sector since the dark days of the financial crisis?

Looking back over eleven years since I accepted the role as BSA CEO – and you welcomed me into the world of building societies, credit unions, financial mutuals and co-operatives – we have travelled together on a journey of rebuilding, improving governance, discovering fresh understanding and insights into our purpose and role in society.  

Building societies have grown their share of the mortgage market from 19% to 23%.  

You have helped almost a million people fulfil their dream of owning their first home.  

You have paid a whacking £9 billion more in interest to your members than they would have got from high street abandoning banks.  

As the headlines lament passing the 6,000 mark in branch closures, you continue to support our towns and communities, increasing your share of high street presence from 15% to 28% - and getting more and more inventive about how you can sustain and use your branch networks for the benefit of those communities.

Our sector has a history of building co-operative technology businesses, co-operative estate agencies, even co-operative internal auditors.  And now two building societies have set out on the road to mutualising bank assets, re-establishing a co-operative banking sector in the UK.  Giving hope to small businesses, social enterprises and ordinary people up and down the country who want and deserve better from their banks.

And that brings me to a question that I have been pondering for a while, brought once again into focus recently by the shock-horror headlines about how many current mortgages will extend past the borrower’s normal retirement date, and the increasing trends of lending into retirement.  The question is one of balance.  How do we balance all the benefits of home ownership with the risks that, for a mercifully small number of borrowers, their mortgage becomes a source of financial difficulty when their circumstances change?

This is part of a wider issue about financial exclusion that should be a major debate – what is the role of government, politicians, prudential and conduct regulators, ombudsmen, campaign groups and the media in increasing financial exclusion?  Sounds like a weird question, doesn’t it?  But to what extend does every outcry, every regulatory clamp down, every demand that something must be done (however well justified in the individual circumstances) lead financial services providers to reduce their risk appetite by withdrawing products and services from the groups who may need them most?  Typically those towards the margins of the financial inclusion / exclusion boundary?

Recent financial services history is littered with examples of good products and services (PPI and payday lending to mention just two) that have become bad products and services by massive over expansion and exploitation.  But what replaces them?  What does good look like?  Who among all those groups mentioned above is up for working together to increase financial inclusion?  We are.

This article was first published in Society Matters magazine