Overview

1851
Bradford Equitable Building Society established mortgages

1851
Bingley Building Society established

1951
Bradford Equitable celebrates its centenary. Despite a local recession in the textile trade, the Society was well placed to ride out the slump with assets of £22m

1922
Assets in Bingley Building Society reached £1.1m. Bingley booming post-war, population now 20,000 with 350 houses built between 1920-25

1964
Bradford's £56m assets and 23 branches merged with Bingley's £46m assets and 29 branches. The newly formed Society proclaimed its merger in an advert in The Building Societies Gazette

1968
Bradford & Bingley's first computer was installed ready for the gigantic task of transferring the ledger ready for decimalisation in 1971

1969
Bradford & Bingley campaigned for building societies to be included in the new SAYE scheme, generating 8,500 new accounts in the first 3 months

1983
New Acorn children's account launched to fill a gap in our product range. In the first 6 weeks 14,000 accounts were opened

1986
Bradford & Bingley issued its first £100m Eurobond floating rate note as its first venture into the wholesale funding market

1987
Acquired Mortgage Express, bringing specialist lending market expertise to the Group

2000
After 149 years as a mutual building society, Bradford & Bingley converted to a plc and listed on the London Stock Exchange