Developments in Banking

Abstract

In a speech to international bankers in 1983, Mr J. S. Fforde, an adviser to the Governor of the Bank of England, put forward the supposition that by the mid-1990s we would have some 15–20 independent, nationwide, competing chains of ‘financial supermarkets’. Alternatively, perhaps there would be some six or seven nationwide chains consisting of nationwide clearers and building societies together with partnerships between clearing banks and building societies or perhaps also between foreign banks and building societies. We have seen in this book how banking is concentrated into the hands of a few banks and it is a fact that between 1955–80 the number of building societies was reduced from about 800–270 and further amalgamations have taken place since.