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.
Mortgage approvals pick up & further cut to Bank Rate expected this year.
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.
Treasury management training for credit unions (28th 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.
Ahead of his appearance at the BSA's Digital Mutual on the 3rd and 4th November 2020, Wayne Duke, principal architect at Sopra Banking Software, discusses the similarities between banking and the music industry. Could a push for digital services in banking compliment rather than cannibalise real-world products like cash just as has been the case with vinyl records?
The decline of physical currency is nothing new. Electronic payments, both online and in-store, have long been ominous omens for the future of cash. And it seems that the Covid-19 pandemic has only accelerated this decline. But how likely is it that in the near future we’ll abandon cash altogether, and what would that mean for the banking industry?
For hygiene reasons, since the emergence of Covid-19, retailers have been increasingly encouraging consumers to use contactless payment methods rather than cash. As such, 54 percent of consumers in the UK have used new forms of payment since the outbreak of the pandemic, according to a report released in May. Even ice cream trucks have begun accepting contactless payments.
Clearly, customer behaviours are changing, and businesses are adapting to meet those changes.
However, amidst the UK’s shift toward digital payment, the Treasury Select Committee has undertaken an inquiry on how to keep cash available in society, introducing a new government scheme Community Access to Cash Pilot (CACP) earlier this year – an initiative that aims to “ensure that we keep cash access for individuals, and help retailers accept and bank cash.”
This begs the question as to why, in our digital age with instant payments and online banking, the UK government is still keen to keep cash.
One key reason is to help prevent the financial exclusion of some of the more vulnerable members of society. The common assumption is that this refers to non-digitally savvy elderly people, but physical cash is also considered important to the financially vulnerable – those with a lower income or poor financial control. Contactless payments often mean people are more care-free with their spending (made more likely with the increase in contactless payment limits). Cash, on the other hand, is physical and tangible, and as such many people find it easier to control what they spend.
Some financial institutions, particularly building societies, have also taken steps to keep cash alive and well. Local bank branches play a key role in keeping cash relevant and in circulation in smaller communities. However, as more and more bank branches close due to the significant reduction in footfall and the costs that come with having a physical branch, it’s increasingly difficult for small communities to access their banks, therefore discouraging them from depositing and withdrawing physical cash.
In order to combat this and to continue to provide as many customers as possible with a local branch (and therefore physical cash), a number of banks have grouped together to trial business banking hubs. These hubs allow businesses to deposit funds from any cash transaction; but rather than this being at a branch of their specific bank, it occurs instead in a hub shared and funded by a number of banks, whose operation could even be outsourced.
Clearly, while digital transformation is indeed a hot topic for the banking industry, many would prefer for traditional cash transactions to remain an option. In this sense, banking isn’t too dissimilar from the music industry, which has been hugely impacted by the advent of digital. Companies such as Apple, Amazon and Spotify are all fighting to be the dominant players in a streaming market worth 8.8 billon dollars and accounting for nearly 80 per cent of the all music revenue.
Nevertheless, despite these astronomical figures, and the amount of attention being put on digital in the music industry, the supposed retro technology of vinyl records is making a surprise comeback (in 2019, vinyl outsold CDs for the first time in 40 years). The reason? We can only assume that a small but significant proportion of music fans still prefer the physical touch and sound quality of the more traditional format, and are prepared to pay for it.
Rather than giving banks and building societies a headache in satisfying both ends of the cash-digital spectrum, it could in fact provide them with an opportunity to provide the “retro-banking” facilities of the branch. Open banking and its expansion through the open finance initiatives, has allowed banks and fintechs to exchange expertise, knowledge, and innovative products and services.
And there’s no reason why the persisting need for cash couldn’t be part of this ecosystem, as banks with no physical presence could pay third parties to manage the “high-street banking” (cash and cheque) part of the business for them.
This may be something that building societies wish to consider as a way to help them support their own future and the future of the UK’s branch network as a whole.
It would seem that, far from digitization forcing cash out, it’s simply providing consumers and banks with more options and opportunities. In the same way that vinyl has found its niche in 2020, cash could do the same.
This webinar will cover a summary of the Employment Rights Bill, with a focus on the proposed changes that will affect Building Societies in particula...
The BSA strongly supports the principle of charging a fee to CMCs.
Our response to FCA GC23-2