Bank or Buliding society

[Homer55]

What is the difference?

[buildersmate]

Originally Building Societies were called Friendly Societies and they set up to help the working man get access to loans. They worked because you saved with them, and when you wanted to borrow money, you borrowed using the same money being saved - by others. A bit like a bank, you might think, except the members owned the society so there were no fat profits to be made for shareholders. Nowadays, many of the Building Societies have demutualised, meaning they 'sold' out the members' rights by becoming banks. Of the Building Societies 3 of the largest that remain are the Nstionwide, Britannia and the Portman. The other large names are banks.

[Homer55]

thanks very much