Abbey National

Abbey National has a massive customer base, a powerful brand that people trust, proven products and services, an integrated distribution network with demonstrable fulfillment capabilities and financial strength. In the world of the hybrid organization--bricks and clicks, high touch and high tech, call it what you will--Abbey National will be a winner. Key Dates: The Abbey Road & St. John's Wood Permanent Benefit Building Society is established. Abbey Road & National Freehold merge to create the Abbey National Building Society. In the short time that it has been a publicly traded company, Abbey National plc has grown into one of Britain's largest banks. Preferring to emphasize its roots as a building society, Abbey National avoids calling itself a bank as much as possible, despite the fact that retail banking services and wholesale banking operations contribute greatly to its bottom line. Through subsidiaries Abbey National also offers life and general insurance. In addition, it has been very active in taking advantage of the Internet and digital TV to reach new customers. Abbey National plc has a long history, growing to become Britain's second largest building society from its 19th-century roots as two separate entities: the National Building Society, established in 1849, and the Abbey Road Building Society, founded in 1874. Later Abbey National became the first such society to convert to a public limited company. The National's founders (among whom were the social reformers and members of Parliament Richard Cobden and Joseph Hume) had a political rather than a commercial agenda. In an age when voting rights were heavily restricted and tied to land ownership, they sought to increase suffrage by increasing the number of those who owned the freehold on their land and were thus entitled to vote. Essentially, then, the National was a land society, not a building society, and was popularly known as The National Freehold Land Society. It was officially named The National Permanent Mutual Benefit Building Society to give the association a legal framework under the Building Societies Act of 1836. The new organization enjoyed tremendous initial success, though not exactly in the way its founders had intended. Relatively few members took electoral advantage of their new status; most were far more interested in the National as a savings and loan institution, and in building on their new land. Britain in the mid-1800s was economically buoyant and socially progressive. More people were earning more money than ever before, industry was booming, the population was growing, the railroads were revolutionizing travel and communications, and society was becoming ever more urbanized. Yet only a tiny proportion of the population owned their own homes. There was great demand for the National's 30 shares, and within four years the society was the largest of its kind in the country. Under the 1836 Building Societies Act, societies were not permitted to own land themselves, so the National held its land in the name of trustees until 1856, when it formed the British Land Company for that purpose. With this division of operations, the National moved a step closer to becoming a building--rather than a land--society, a process completed in 1878 when the National and the British Land Company separated. Unlike the National, the Abbey Road Building Society was formed in recognition of the growing need for home ownership. An outgrowth of a self-help organization, the Abbey Road Baptist Church's benefit society, the association was masterminded by Frank Yerbury, a builder, to purchase houses for its 500 members. Led by conservative directors in its early years, the Abbey Road enjoyed modest but steady success. Building societies suffered a setback toward the end of the 19th century. In 1892 the Liberator, one of the National's principal competitors, was forced out of business by a combination of unwise speculation and fraud. In the wake of the scanda