In his final keynote address to the Building Societies Annual Conference, Robin explores the opportunities for the co-operative and mutual banking sector to build strong, positive futures in a fast-changing and unpredictable world.

Good afternoon everyone

And thank you Richard and Rain for getting our 250th anniversary conference off to such a cracking start.

Thank you both for your strong support for our wonderful sector.

For your recognition of the real importance of structural diversity in financial services, and indeed in every sector of the economy.

And let me add my welcome to our great celebration.

Welcome to all our members.

Welcome to all our overseas guests.  We are so glad you could join us here in Birmingham.

Welcome to all our colleagues from other trade associations, from government, from regulators.

Thank you and welcome to all our sponsors, exhibitors, associates, members of the press and supporters.

And if I have missed anyone – welcome!

I was quite taken recently by a quote from the English poet, John Keats:

“There is nothing stable in the world; uproar’s your only music”

Global tariffs, trade wars, actual wars, political extremism, a strong feeling that the world order we have all grown up with is changing.

Nothing is stable.

The uproar of geopolitics is our current music.

Yet from uproar and chaos comes opportunity.

Opportunity to find equilibrium and order among the chaos.

An opportunity for all of us to change the music.

To trumpet the real value to our economies and our societies of purposeful businesses that exist to meet the needs and aspirations of their customers, their members and their communities.

Businesses that demonstrate the true resilience that comes from long term steady growth.  That have remained profitable through world wars, global pandemics, recessions and depressions.  Even global financial crises.

In short, mutual and co-operative businesses.

And what a great moment it is for the whole of the mutual and co-operative sector as we come together from across the UK and across the world to celebrate a quarter of a millennium of the building society movement.

In the city where it all started.

What a great time to be celebrating the UN International Year of Co-operatives.

What a great time to have a Government committed to doubling the size of the UK’s mutual and co-operative sector.  To have brought together the spectrum of mutual and co-operative businesses and their trade bodies in the Mutual and Co-operative Sector Business Council.

What a great time to be celebrating our history as we drive forward to be an increasingly important part of a properly diverse UK financial services sector.

In a world that seems increasingly troubled, isolationist and at risk, isn’t wonderful to have a good news story.

And ours is a good news story.

About building societies and credit unions that are growing in strength.

Delivering a bedrock of long-term steady growth.

Reinvesting their profits in their members, their communities and their futures.

Supporting household financial resilience, home ownership and UK economic growth.

Making our own future

The future is mutual if we want it to be – but only if we want it to be.

As I have said many times in the past: if we don’t make our own future, we probably won’t like the future that is made for us.

That is as true today as it was when workers first met in the Golden Cross Inn in 1775.

They were the disruptors and innovators then.  We must continue to be the disruptors and innovators now and into the future.

That is why we welcome so strongly the recent acquisitions of banks by Nationwide and Coventry.

That is why we welcome the sustained commitment of our members to keeping a presence on high streets up and down the country. And in increasingly innovative ways.

That is why we so warmly welcome the Government’s commitment.  Why we look forward to the PRA and FCA reporting to the Government later this year on the Mutuals Landscape – and what they can do to support its growth and development.

Be assured that we are already suggesting to both regulators what they should include!

We know that diversity of business models is good for financial stability.  So we encourage our regulators to be bold. Not just seeking to level the playing field but to be actively promoting structural diversity.

That starts this afternoon with Emad Aladhal’s speech, in which we are looking forward to hearing the FCA’s thinking about the future mortgage market.

It continues tomorrow with Charlotte Gerken’s speech, where we anticipate hearing some early indications on what might be included in the PRA’s part of the Mutuals Landscape report. 

As a starter for ten, we currently have a Sourcebook (SS20/15) that is anti-competitive, outdated and hinders growth. That needs to change.

As does the approach to all other banking regulation that tend to be designed for shareholder-owned banks and then applied (without adjustment) to mutuals. 

When we put together the Mutuals Prospectus last year with our trade association colleagues from Co-operative’s UK, the Association of British Credit Unions and the Association of Financial Mutuals, we had three asks of a new government:

• Include us in the conversations across government so that we can offer mutual and co-operative solutions to the range of the Government’s agenda
• Update legislation where it needs to be updated
• Provide access to pools of genuinely mutual start-up and growth capital

We should add a fourth.

Don’t do things that would actively slow down, undermine or otherwise damage the sector.

We are here to deliver on the manifesto commitment to double the size of the sector.  Don’t put roadblocks in the way.

Our active campaign against reported proposals to reform the ISA regime is a case in point.  I am sure we will hear more about that tomorrow when the Economic Secretary to the Treasury joins us.

We have come a huge way since 1775

This will be my last conference as the BSA’s Chief Executive.

It has been my privilege to use this platform each year to encourage us all to look forward and to shape our futures.

We have come a huge way since 1775.

We have come a huge way since the financial crash in 2008.

By finding ever new ways to fulfil our individual and collective purpose.

New ways to meet the needs and aspirations of our current and future members.

In truth, for many of us, in rediscovering the lasting strength of purpose driven business.

Of real clarity about why we exist and why our existence is so vital to UK financial services and UK society.

Ours is a business model of inclusive growth, not exploitative growth.

A model of genuinely good business.

250 years ago, I doubt the founding members of Ketley’s Building Society were thinking about the legacy they were creating for us.

They just wanted decent houses for themselves and their families.

But we do have that opportunity to think about the legacy we are creating.

We have the opportunity to build on the foundations they created – for the benefit of generations to come.

So how disruptive and innovative do we want to be in the years to come?

How much do we want to change the face of UK financial services?

Are we all just a bit too comfortable?  A bit too risk averse?

Are we too focused on the near term?

On the 3-5 year business plan?

On today’s competitive environment?

Dare I say it, on our own terms in office?

Are the constraints on our businesses at least in part of our own making?

Three themes for boards

I want to leave you with three themes for boards to consider as you develop your strategies and plans for the next period.  

Hopefully these are themes that will also resonate with all our international visitors.

Firstly, if we continue to focus on meeting the needs of society, we will continue to flourish.

What more can we all do to help improve individual and household financial resilience?  Are our current retail funding models just too convenient?  How hard have we thought about aligning our funding strategy to our purpose?

What more can we do to support people buying their first homes, moving up, sizing down?  Successive Governments have had ambitious targets for new homes.  Is there more we can do to support those targets?

What more can we do to support the communities we serve up and down the country?  To be the hero brands on our high streets?  Are we able to do more to support local small businesses as well as individuals and community groups?  What are we doing with young people – our future members?  Are we doing enough on financial education?  Are we running children’s savings clubs?

What more can we do to provide great jobs and careers for young people, for returners to work, for older members of our communities too?  Does that start with work experience for school children?  Are we actively reaching into the more challenged parts of our communities – or just waiting for people to come to us?

Secondly, if we continue to focus on our members as individuals, we will find the ways to navigate the rapidly evolving AI and technology revolution.

We have discussed this before at Conference and around individual board tables.

In my view it remains hugely relevant.

How do we turn intermediary introduced borrowers into real members?

As the retail savings market becomes more and more digital, and especially if that market becomes increasingly disaggregated by savings platforms and technology, how do we turn digital and platform introduced savers into real members?

Even more so if savings allocations become increasingly algorithm driven?

Essentially, how do we create future brand loyalty and active membership?

What more can we do to listen carefully to what our current members want?

And what those who are not currently our members want too?

Or are we content to run the risk that future generations will continue to behave like current and past generations?  That older savers with plenty of money will provide all the retail funding we need?  That younger savers and those with limited funds are not worth thinking too hard about?

Where does that sit in your board risk appetite?  And where should it sit?

And finally, if we continue to focus on developing our understanding of excellence in mutual governance, we will deal successfully with all the uproar going on around us.

Back in 2013, a few eyebrows were raised when the BSA’s strategy included a theme on excellent and distinctive governance in mutuals.

I made no apology for it then.  And I make no apology for it now.

Many of us have grown up with the UK Corporate Governance Code.  The Cadbury Code as it was in its first iteration.

The Code was developed for publicly owned companies.  Not mutuals.

As we all know, there is much to read across.  But there are also some very important distinctions and differences.

And whether we have been in the mutual sector for the whole of our careers or are more recent arrivals from the shareholder owned or other sectors, we will all continue to benefit from developing and evolving our understanding of what it takes to run a highly successful mutual business.

• Does one member one vote create a recipe for weak democracy and weak accountability?
• Why would members want to be actively engaged?
• If members struggle to hold you to account, do you need to hold yourselves much more accountable to your members?
• What does that look like?
• What do we mean by putting members at the heart of board decision making?
• How do we evolve the definition of delivering member value?
• How do you balance the interests of current savings and borrowing members?
• And how do you balance the interests of current and future members?
• How do we validate that?
• In a long term business, how do you keep a mutual board and executive team constantly on its toes?
• In short, how do you best fulfil your stewardship obligations to pass the business on to the next generation in a better condition than you inherited it?
• In a condition fit for the future
• What is the legacy you want to create?

The future is mutual

The future is mutual – if we want it to be.

And we very much want it to be.

Thank you all so much.