On 4 June 2024, the Building Societies Act 1986 (Amendment) Act 2024 was published on legislation.gov.uk. The Act intends to enable societies across the UK to raise more funds from sources other than member savings and bring some administrative rules in line with those which apply to banks. The Bill received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024; the Act will come into force on 24 July 2024 (at the end of the period of two months beginning with the day on which it was passed).

The Act puts building societies on a more level playing field with other retail deposit-takers (i.e. banks) in relation to their capital raising and corporate governance requirements, so that they can compete more effectively in the financial services sector and better support their members. It helps to deliver key asks from the building society sector. This Act thus amends the Building Societies Act 1986 (“the 1986 Act”) and also provides HM Treasury with the powers to make specific secondary legislation.

To enable this, the Act makes provisions in three areas:

• Funds that can be disregarded by a building society for the purpose of calculating its wholesale funding limit;
• Real-time virtual member participation in building society meetings; and
• The execution of deeds and other documents.

All in all the main aim is to support building societies to grow, scale and compete with retail banks, creating competition in the UK financial services sector.