Ever-increasing regulation is often cited by finance directors as the thing that most hampers their work. But Scarborough Building Society finance director Robin Litten believes new rules in the financial services sector has helped his operation.

“Basel II [the European directive that aims to modernise the existing capital requirements framework] has had a big impact on the amount of capital that organisations like us need to have,” he says.

“It has changed the way we’ve planned the business. It has enabled us to expand into areas with more confidence in the risk that we’re taking on.

“I think the capital regime has become a lot more pragmatic in terms of how it’s structured.”

Scarborough Building Society has been transformed during the past couple of years from a traditional building society that’s strong in the savings and mortgages arenas to something quite different. “We’ve been adding other subsidiaries,” Litten says “We acquired an offshore savings business, we launched a specialist lending business and we also attained a credit ranking from Moody’s.”

Diversifying has worked in the building society’s favour. Litten notes: “Profits are up 20 percent. Assets are up 33 percent. The balance sheet size of the business is £2.3bn.”

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Tags: scarborough building society, traditional building society, european directive, capital regime, robin litten, mortgages, offshore savings business, fd, basel ii, finance director,

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