Comments for Mutual Money

Comment on Co-op & Britannia to Merge by Andy

Andy — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:25:13 +0000

Just to mention that the Britannia Member Reward increased for members of 5yrs to 150% and 10yrs to 200%. Thus past year’s payout was greater than the Co-Op dividend for members of 5yrs or more(p20 merger document). No such increases for loyalty under the CWS. However, no balance cap for the Co-Op dividend unlike the £22K cap for Britannia savers.
This will be the last time Britannia members get to vote at an AGM if they approve the merger as the Co-Op is much differently structured – Co-Op members are not being given a vote on this merger you will note.

Comment on About by Y Yano

Y Yano — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:58:08 +0000

Hello. Mr. Russo.
I work for one of Japanese mutual life insurers, Nippon Life, here in London. (Nippon means Japan.)

In Japan, the trend of demutualization is becoming the mainstream in life insuerance industry and most of our rivals followed that trens and in the process of that. However, as one of the most traditinoal and largest life insurer in Japan, we and our management still believe the benefit of mutuality and struggle to cope with these issues very rationally.

A office member found your blog today and we all enjoyed and were encouraged. We hope that you will keep your blog as a spiritual support of not only in the UK but of all people who believes in the value of mutuality.

Comment on Co-op & Britannia to Merge by mutualmoney

mutualmoney — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:08:26 +0000

Hi Paul!

The Butterfill Act has certainly relaxed the rules regarding mutual mergers and transfers, and you make a great point. There are many types of mutuals each with different internal governance structures. The Co-operative Group is governed differently from a Credit Union which is different from a Building Society. To me this is a result of their being no proper definition of a co-operative in law.

In the case of CFS you make an interesting point. The Co-op Bank is technically not a mutual bank although it is owned by a mutual organisation. In some ways members of Britannia are going to feel like they have even less say in the running of the combined organisation than they did their building society. I would therefore hope that CFS and the Co-op Group will look into extending their democratic functions into CFS more fully.

Currently CFS is managed in a ‘hands off’ way, I believe this will need to change, so that just as the branding has become unified the management and democratic structures should become more unified too.

Comment on Credit Union/Social Fund Row by Social Fund - Government Response « Mutual Money

Social Fund - Government Response « Mutual Money — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:49:04 +0000

[...] Fund – Government Response Posted on February 24, 2009 by mutualmoney Back in January we reported that a row had erupted over plans by the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) to sub-contract [...]

Comment on Co-op & Britannia to Merge by Paul

Paul — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:36:01 +0000

I am secretary of a credit union and treasurer of a co-op party council so I share your interest in these issues.

The proposed merger between Britannia and CFS is an interesting one. For one thing the CFS is not mutually owned. It has one share holder the co-op group. Whereas Britannias shareholders attend their agm, Co-op Group members do not – only delegates from area committees attend the AGM so I am not sure what democratic structures will emerge from the merger. If Britannia becomes part of the Co-op, Britannia members will lose their right to attend the AGM. This could be an enormous issue for some people.

Comment on Co-op & Britannia to Merge by Martin

Martin — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:50:56 +0000

Worth saying that the Butterfill Act has got Royal Assent already, since 2007 in fact. What’s going through Parliament just now are the legislative orders needed to make it work. It’s a much quicker process, assuming noone has any major concerns, so will be ready in March some time.

David Anderson’s departure is a real loss, but Bob Burlton is the existing chairman of CFS (and previously of the Co-operative Group main board too), so there will be continuation of the strong leadership so integral to CFS’s performance recently.

Comment on Building Societies Pay for Banking Greed by Bring back the building societies! « Khanya

Bring back the building societies! « Khanya — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:11:04 +0000

[...] requiring government bailouts, while the buildings societies that remained building societies are now being penalised for the greed of the banks: The chairman of the Building Societies Association (BSA), John Goodfellow has hit out at [...]