Nationwide Building Society

Nationwide represents the world’s largest building society and a member of the Building Societies Association. This institution is Britain's third largest mortgage lender, included in the list of the ranking Top 50 Safest Banks which is published by Global Finance magazine.

Nationwide’s head office is located in Swindon, United Kingdom. The society operates administrative unit in Northampton plus 750 branches and 200 agencies around Great Britain. Approximately 19,000 employees work for Nationwide. Graham Beale is the acting Chief Executive while Geoffrey Howe is the Chairman.

Nationwide boosts more than 160 years of work as a building society, tracing its origins to the “Dover Building Society”, the “Provident Union Building Society”, founded in 1846, the “Northampton Town & County Freehold Land Society” of 1848 and the Co-operative Permanent established in London in 1884. The name Nationwide Building Society was chosen in 1970. Since its establishment, the Society has completed more than a hundred mergers. One of the biggest is the 1987 merger with Anglia Building Societies.

Another important merger took place in 2007: the society merged with the Portman Building Society. As a result, Nationwide’s assets exceeded £160 billion. A couple of mergers followed, among which: a 2008 merger with Cheshire and Derbyshire building societies, and a 2009 merger with the Dunfermline Building Society. The beginning of this year was marked by an expansion into the the Republic of Ireland.

Nationwide offers a broad spectrum of banking and financial services, emphasising on mortgage lending and savings. Services and products include: current accounts (FlexAccount, Internet Banking, Telephone Banking); credit card operations; wide range of insurances (home insurance, car insurance, travel insurance, life insurance, shops insurance, etc.); investments (child trust fund; guaranteed equity bond, share dealing, etc.); loans (personal loans and overdrafts); mortgages (remortgaging, first time buyers, moving home and lender, additional borrowing, etc.); savings (regular savings, e-savings, e-bond, under 18s accounts); and pensions.

In addition to the main activities, the society has been involved in various sponsorship campaigns. At present, Nationwide sponsors the four national football teams of the United Kingdom and the Nationwide Mercury Music Prize.