NEW POWERS FOR OLD
BUILDING SOCIETIES DID NOT wait to be drawn into the tide of legislation that has been sweeping away many of the traditional regulatory barriers within Britain's finance industry. They took the initiative by considering the new powers they would need to bring societies into line with changing markets and, after two and a half years of detailed discussion, the Building Societies Association published its own 'green paper' on new legislation early in 1984.
Much of that BSA discussion document appeared in print later the same year. Once again, it had green covers; only this time it appeared under the title, 'Building Societies: A New Framework', and was presented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as the government's own, formal discussion document ahead of the Parliamentary debate, in the summer of 1986, on the new Building Societies Bill.
Having effectively pre-drafted most of their own new rules, the societies' main concern in the progress of the Bill has been to ensure that the proposals reach the statute books without upsetting the delicate balance between controls to protect investors and ensure prudent management, and a new freedom to develop additional services.