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By the end of this year everyone in the building society sector should know who Richard Ketley was, and why he is such an important figure in our collective  history.

For 2025 is the 250th anniversary of the founding of the first known building society (in case anyone had missed that), established by the said Richard Ketley at the Golden Cross Inn in Snowhill, Birmingham.

What a great moment for the whole of the mutual sector. An opportunity to celebrate loudly all those businesses founded from social purpose over a quarter millennium to meet the needs and aspirations of their members, their communities and their countries. Together with the co-operatives, we are a truly global movement with many of our roots here in the UK.

What a great time to be celebrating the UN 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. 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 it 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.

When building societies pay out £5.4bn more in interest to their members in five years than then would have got from the large banks*, that is £5.4bn that flows back into the UK economy, boosting household incomes.

Just think about that in the context of the recent furore over proposed changes to the ISA regime. Funds deposited in Cash ISAs not only return interest to savers, but also provide a strong funding underpin to a substantial part of the mortgage market. Through building society lending alone this is around £400 billion – equivalent to 24% of the total mortgage market. Looking at the first nine months of 2024, building  societies were accountable for 115% of total mortgage market growth.

Yes, that’s right. Shareholder owned banks stepped back from the mortgage market over much of  last year, and their mortgage balances contracted. Building societies did not.  Building societies carried on what they were created to do – supporting peoples hopes and dreams for home ownership. Fulfilling their purpose and benefitting UK society as they have done for 250 years.

Nearly half (41%) of building society residential owner-occupied lending was advanced to first-time buyers, meaning they accounted for around a third of the total first-time buyer market.

The story of Richard Ketley is of people coming together to provide solutions for their needs and the needs of their communities. In the newly industrialising Birmingham of 1775, that was about providing decent affordable housing for ordinary working  people and their families. In 2025 it is still about enabling ordinary working people and their families to buy decent homes.

And what will the mutual sector look like by 2030, 2040 and 2050? We often talk about the huge resilience of the building society model, well run. We can look at the track record of today’s firms that have never made a loss despite world wars, pandemics, depressions and recessions. The track record of steady growth, year-in, year-out. Rain or shine.

But that is not to be complacent. Any chair or chief executive will tell you how competitive the marketplace is, how complex the regulation, how expensive the need to maintain and develop systems in such a fast-moving world of technology.

As you can imagine, we have had lots of conversations recently about  artificial intelligence, and also about intelligent automation. Technology is transforming the face of financial services. That  presents challenges and opportunities to think about how mutual businesses can  evolve to provide services for future generations. If everyone is led by  technology, how do we stand out for treating our members as individuals?

Technological and social changes mean that branches are not being used in the  same way that they were a decade ago. Much more day-to-day banking is being done online or via apps. But, where branches close, the communities they leave behind suffer.

The FCA found greater dependence on branches for people who are digitally excluded, old, in poor health, with lower financial resilience and financial capability. And cash is still the second most popular payment method - figures from the British Retail Consortium show cash usage represented 1 in 5 transactions in 2023.

Consumers still value bricks and mortar, and face-to-face customer engagement. KPMG research found that 64% of Brits would miss their high street branch if it closed. For 142 towns up and down the UK, the building society is the last remaining branch in town. Our share of the high street has risen from 14% in 2013 to over 30% now, and will continue to grow as the retail banks carry on closing down their branch networks. While we find inventive ways to maintain and expand our network.

Clearly, though, success on the high street is only part of the story. In a market being redefined by technology, where can building societies and credit unions stand out and add value? How can the mutual sector use technology to engage with a new generation of customers? Already building societies are using Open Banking within communities to provide access to cash via multi-bank kiosks. Is there an opportunity to incorporate new technology, like NFC chips/QR codes into much loved passbooks to overcome some of the operational challenges passbooks create around printing in branch?

AI has gone from Science Fiction to some form of reality (shall we settle on advanced machine learning rather than genuine artificial intelligence)? The UK Government is looking to supercharge development to provide benefits to the population. How can the mutual sector similarly benefit from AI and future technologies like Quantum Computing? We are already doing lots with intelligent automation of routine tasks, improved data analytics, fraud detection and risk management. How can new technology help redefine and simplify regulatory reporting?

Technology has always created new opportunities and new challenges. Perhaps for our sector the real opportunity now is for firms truly focused on the needs of members and community. Where trust and human contact are the key differentiators. The building society sector has an extraordinary past. We must do all we can to ensure that it has an extraordinary future.

Happy 250th Birthday!!

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*2019-23 additional savings interest vs average rates offered by large banks