Do Nationwide Building Society Building Society offer competitive products? Nationwide Building Society Building SocietyA product of the great population migrations of the Industrial Revolution, building societies grew up in the 1770s when workers began to form societies to save for land and materials with which to build houses of their own. Each member contributed regularly until all members' houses had been built, after which a society was wound up. The 1880s saw a rapid expansion in the number of societies, many of which became permanent home-loans and savings institutions, paying interest on deposits to savers and charging borrowers for money loaned. The industry has since witnessed hundreds of mergers between smaller societies to form first regional, then national societies. Nationwide's dual origins lie in Northampton (1848) and within the co-operative movement in London (1883) respectively. Today's Nationwide Building Society is the product of over a hundred such mergers, most notably the merger between the Nationwide and the Anglia Building Societies in 1987, to form the country's second largest building society. Nationwide is the UK's fourth largest mortgage lender and ninth largest retail banking, saving and lending organisation by asset size. More significantly, Nationwide is the largest building society in the world and is committed to staying mutual. With headquarters in Swindon and a second major administrative centre at Northampton, Nationwide now offers a broad range of retail financial services. Mortgages, savings, current accounts, life assurance and investment products, personal loans and household insurance are all available from the Nationwide Group. Nationwide has mutual (as opposed to Public Limited Company) status, which means that it is owned by its members and is run day-to-day by an executive management team overseen by an elected board of directors. Like all Building Societies, Nationwide is regulated by the Building Societies Commission. | 
