Kent Reliance Building Society gets banking licence

Kent Reliance Building Society have become the OneSavings Bank Plc, after it was granted a banking licence by the Financial Services Authority.

The bank will trade as Kent Reliance Banking Services, Kent Reliance or kbrs and will take on the savings and loss-making mortgage book from the former building society.

Kent Reliance was able to transform the way it operates because of a £50 million capital injection from private equity firm JC Flowers & Co. The building society was Britain's twelfth largest with 102,000 members and it dates back more than 160 years.  Savers will become members of the Kent Reliance Providence Society, which will hold a majority of ordinary shares in the OneSavings Bank.

Mike Lazenby, chief executive of Kent Reliance, said: "This is the culmination of more than a year of consultations with our advisors, working to produce a structure capable of introducing fresh capital into the business, whilst retaining mutuality for our members - we are effectively taking our mutuality to another level."

"We will be a bank run on mutual principals, providing customers with affordable, competitive banking services - whether they choose more traditional branch-based forms of banking or whether they deal with us online."

February 4, 2011