Back to the Old Cock
THE MUTUAL societies have to show that they can do things differently and better, and even that, as the Nationwide has found, is no guarantee of safety. There are cries for change in the law, even though the law that governs the building societies was writ- ten to please and protect them. Rosalind Gilmore, who as their First Commissioner used to administer it, now calls it stifling and (in a paper for the Council for the Study of Financial Innovation) says we need a new one. I see no case for putting another fence around the Backscratchers, but I would like to make it easier for new clubs to start up. Technological and social change could now work for them — but who would care or bother to set up a Christmas club if it had to comply with the last Financial Services Act and the next one, and suffer the costs and distractions involved in keeping the regulators happy? Life was simpler in 1853 in the Old Cock Inn in Halifax, where the regulars banded together to form a house-buying club. These days the Halifax is just another company.
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