British building society confident of building strong Irish customer base

BRITISH building society, Nationwide — which formally starts trading here today — is confident of building a strong customer base in Ireland but has no interest in growing through acquisition.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner earlier this week, Nationwide UK Ireland (as the company will be known here to avoid any confusion with the Irish Nationwide Building Society) managing director, Carl Gandy, said that the company is keen to grow organically.

“We’ll look to grow our way, which apart from a small level in the UK, tends not to be through acquisition. We’re not interested in taking anyone over here,” he said.

Similarly, Nationwide is not contemplating building a high-street retail network in Ireland in the foreseeable future. Mr Gandy said that this policy would only change if consumers here demanded so. It will start by serving customers both online and over the phone.

“Not having a high street presence shouldn’t be a barrier to us growing here; I don’t see it as being a challenge to growing brand recognition, but if customers want it then we’ll do it,” he said.

Nationwide — which will initially employ 20 people at its Irish office in Dublin’s IFSC, 80% of whom have been sourced locally — is the world’s biggest building society, with assets of around £200 billion (e217bn).

It was recently ranked as the second-strongest bank in the world by Global Finance magazine. On average, last year, 5,000 savings deposit accounts were being opened with the company in Britain on a daily basis.

Nationwide will be offering savings products; areas such as personal loans, mortgages and credit cards will be examined at a later date.

Referring to recent erosion of confidence in banking, Mr Gandy said: “There is a need for more mutual organisations in order to offer more competition and there may be opportunities for the likes of us that maybe weren’t there 12 months ago. But, we’re aiming to be here for the long-term not for short- term gains.”