We are a building society, governed by the UK Building Societies Act 1986, and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

We are the largest building society in the United Kingdom in terms of total assets. Our core business is providing personal financial services.

As a mutual organisation, we are owned by and managed for the benefit of our members - our retail savings and residential mortgage customers - rather than for shareholders.

Our main focus is serving our members' interests while retaining sufficient profit to increase and further develop our business and meet regulatory requirements. We return value to our members by offering typically higher interest rates on savings and lower interest rates on loans than those offered by our main competitors. This returned value is commonly referred to as our member value. As a result of returning value to our members, we earn lower pre-tax profits than our main competitors (typically banks or other non-mutual organisations).