September 2016 – The increased pay for the chief executive of “Your” Nationwide (Building Society) although the highest sum was not the highest percentage increase. Other boardrooms also indulge in the same self serving practice. At the same time savers, who help to pay for these bonuses, see their interest rates dwindle to pathetic rates and find “challenger banks to be very competitive.
The BSA continues to routinely commission academic studies that say building societies provide better returns for customers than banks because they have no shareholders to pay. The last one was published in May last year. However the reporting tends to be carefully worded when referring to “challenger” banks as these are currently in competition with or outperforming building societies and treating these as rivals to building societies, which they are of course, unlike the major banks.
The BSA promotes the fact that members of societies are the owners of the societies. They actively try to promote member “involvement” to the members of the BSA, including seminars for their members and it quotes various activities in which building society members may be or are involved. But these fall far short of any involvement in anything to do with governance. The BSA make a reference to the fact that the law provides for members to stand as board candidates and put forward resolutions but there is no further mention of this subject.
So if building societies cannot beat banks and their members are treated as just customers and are thereby prevented from being involved in societies it begs the question – what is the point of mutuals?