| Manchester welcomes BSA delegates |
Click here to download full conference details:
|
The Building Societies Annual Conference brings 300+ building society directors and senior executives together with representatives from other mortgage lenders, insurers, government, regulators, the media, and others interested in building societies, to hear top class speakers and exchange views and ideas on industry issues.
The conference is organised by the Building Societies Association, the national representative body for the building society sector. All 59 societies are members of the Association. Building societies have nearly 22.5 million investing members and nearly 2.9 million borrowing members, operate over 2,100 branches, employ around 50,000 staff, and have around £350 billion of assets. They are an important component of the economy.
Vision
Building societies have a distinguished history. In today’s fast changing conditions however, success in the past does not guarantee even existence in the future. One way of improving an organisation’s chance of thriving, rather than just existing, is to have a good understanding of how the world is likely to change over the next few years. It is with this thought in mind that we have designed this year’s BSA Annual Conference. We start an outstanding plenary session with Hector Sants, Chief Executive of the FSA looking at recent, dramatic events – and some less dramatic – and outlining current regulatory initiatives. We have David Smith, of Global Futures and Foresight, taking a worldwide view of changes in society. And we have Derek Scott, former Economic Advisor to Tony Blair, looking at the future of the economy – a key determinant of societies’ own performance. The afternoon continues the theme of the future. Recent events suggest that the UK climate is getting warmer and wetter. How far will this trend continue? And how do you run a building society in a flood? These and many other questions will be answered in our climate change seminar.
Alternatively, you might prefer to attend our future of distribution seminar. The economics and regulation of distribution, and the consumer view of distributors, are all changing rapidly. We have a regulator, a recently retired consumer representative and our own Matthew Bullock, BSA former Chairman, speaking on this subject.
A fascinating day comes to a fascinating end when David Aaronovitch, the leading political commentator, talks on the psychology of leadership, following his recent TV interviews with Tony Blair. David’s insights will be unique – don’t miss them!
Day two begins with the subject everyone is talking about – Northern Rock and the credit crunch. Andrew Hilton, Director of CSFI begins the day; the Chief Economist of the Mortgage Bankers’ Association will tell us the whole sorry story of the sub-prime market in the USA. There is then a difficult choice between a seminar on improving operational effectiveness in building societies and perhaps the related discussion of leadership and staff development. This latter subject is essential to the future of any organisation. A lack of leadership and staff development is likely to mean a lack of leadership and staff in a few years time!
Our final sub-plenaries offer another choice. The mortgage market is obviously crucial to the future of building societies; we have three distinguished commentators. Alternatively, we have three mutual institutions – two of them from outside the building society sector – describing how best to achieve the sometimes elusive goal of improving customer service. All in all, our speakers this year are innovative, exciting and compelling. Equally compelling are the arguments for attending the conference.
Don’t miss it!
Adrian Coles Director-General, BSA
Click here to download full conference details:
