Building Societies Association (BSA) hosted David Bailey, Executive Director for Prudential Policy at Bank of England this morning (20 September 2024), as he delivered a speech on the proposed new ‘Strong and Simple’ capital regime for building societies (and banks) followed by an open discussion with senior leaders from Building Societies. 

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) published strong and simple capital regime for smaller firms on 12 September. The BSA strongly supports the Strong and Simple agenda to provide genuine and tangible proportionality into the regulatory framework rather than the existing one-size-fits-all approach. 

Robin Fieth, Building Societies Association CEO commented:

“The new Strong and Simple consultation provides greater certainty and proportionality to the industry, and it was good to have the opportunity to discuss them with David Bailey this morning.

“We welcome that the PRA has now published its proposals for a simplified capital regime for smaller deposit-takers. The BSA believes that simpler rules that are easy to understand and simple to implement are more effective than complex rules. We need to now work through the details and look forward to responding to the PRA on this important consultation.”

You can watch the speech again here

Press contacts:
Debbie Enever, debbie.enever@bsa.org.uk 
Katie Wise, katie.wise@bsa.org.uk 

Notes to Editors:

1. The Building Societies Association (BSA) represents all 42 building societies, as well as 7 of the larger credit unions. Building societies serve around 26 million consumers across the UK and have total assets of over £515 billion. 
   Together with their subsidiaries, they are helping over 3.5 million families and individuals to buy a home with mortgages totalling over £385 billion, representing 24% of total mortgage balances outstanding in the UK. 
   They are also helping over 23 million people build their financial resilience, holding over £385 billion of retail savings, accounting for 19% of all cash savings in the UK.  Within this, societies account for 40% of all cash ISA balances.
2. With all of their headquarters outside London, building societies employ around 51,500 full and part-time staff.  In addition to digital services they operate through approximately 1,300 branches, holding a 28% share of branches across the UK.