Our history
The origins of Chelsea Building Society go back to 1875, when the Camberwell and South London Building Society was formed. Three years later, in 1878, the Borough of Chelsea Permanent Building Society was formed. Over the years both societies merged with smaller societies and on 31 December 1966 the two societies merged to create a new society with assets of £30 million. The new society was called the Chelsea and South London Building Society until April 1971 when the name was changed to Chelsea Building Society.
Following the merger in 1966, the administrative headquarters were based in Streatham, with the registered office at 110 Kings Road, Chelsea. In 1973, having outgrown the accommodation at Streatham, the administrative headquarters moved to Thirlestaine Hall in Cheltenham. On 1 July 1988 Chelsea completed its most recent merger, with the City of London Building Society, with the name Chelsea remaining unaffected.
Our present
Chelsea now has assets in excess of £13 billion making us the country's 5th largest building society. We have 34 branch offices mainly in southern England, although our direct savings and mortgage facilities mean that we can truly be regarded as a national building society.
In April 2006 we opened our new Contact Centre in Cheltenham, demonstrating our commitment to offering our customers telephone support from within the UK. This purpose-built centre is designed to be environmentally friendly, just one reflection of our strong corporate responsibility pedigree.
Chelsea are committed to being customer focused in all we say and do. We want to build experiences that are unforgettably positive and value enhancing.
Through understanding where we come into contact with customers, we can recognise what our customers think of us so we can consistently improve our services and customer experiences.
We continually review and act upon feedback we receive from our customers across all of our products and channels - it's clear how passionate our customers are about engaging with us and we want it to keep coming!
It's great to hear what our customers think as we exist to ensure they get the best services and products possible.
Chelsea's mortgage service will help you find a mortgage to suit your needs. We have a range of products available.
To get a personalised illustration please either: email us, visit us or phone us on 0800 345 7744.
We continuously offered a range of competitive variable and fixed rate products throughout 2006, from regular savings accounts, encouraging customers to save on a regular basis, to fixed rate accounts where customers can have the reassurance that their interest won't change in a fluctuating rate environment.
We pride ourselves on the fact that our savings products consistently feature in both regional and national press and online Best Buy tables; in 2006 we received 1,140 Best Buy mentions. 102 of these were for Ready Steady Save, a children's savings account creating financial awareness from an early age.
We are best buy for a reason, the average rate that we pay to our savers is 0.84% above the industry average*.
*weighted retail funding rate as per 'CACI Current Accounts and Savings Market database' for banks and building societies - May 2007.
Our AGM is an opportunity for us to be able to engage with all of our members by giving them the chance to have a say in how we operate.
This year's AGM voting pack highlighted our commitment to keeping our members informed.
Our AGM vote is consistently one of the best across the building society sector and this year was no different with a spectacular 22% of our members making their vote count. We donated 10p to charity for every voting form returned or 20p for online votes.
Treating customers fairly (TCF) is an initiative within the financial services industry to increase awareness of the need for constant attention to customer needs, focussing on fair treatment for every customer. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) are spearheading the work around TCF and we have been working with them to agree a set of principles for Chelsea which match our core business values.
Treating you fairly
We believe in providing good value, transparent products and a professional, efficient service. We also believe in treating all our customers fairly and we make sure we do this by:
Our values
Our values, which are shown below, help to build a culture of fairness in all our dealings with customers, our staff and the wider community. We aim to live by these values in everything we do, ensuring that we give you the best experience we possibly can:
Our growth over recent years has been founded on providing good value products, backed up by a high quality personal service. This has enabled us to fulfil our mission of helping people own their home and achieve financial security. We are very proud of the fact that the majority of our lending is supported by money saved by our members.
We are constantly striving to improve the services we offer and welcome all your suggestions for future developments.
Our 2007 MORI (Market & Opinion Research International) survey informs us that we deliver a high level of satisfaction and that a large proportion of our customers would be willing to recommend us.
We have recently begun a programme of research both talking to customers in person and through postal surveys.
With this research we can make changes to our processes, products and services to ensure that we are consistently delivering what our customers want.
About Britannia Capital Securities LLP
We're a growing business which recognises the need to grasp opportunities to expand the range of services we can offer direct to customers and professional contacts.
In the last year one of the things that showed just how serious we are about doing this was the acquisition of a secured loan brokerage, Britannia Capital Securities.
With the newly named BCS Loans & Mortgages, we are able to offer access to a range of competitive products from a panel of well known secured loan providers.
Whilst the acquisition benefits Chelsea financially and enables additional services to be offered, one important consideration was the cultural fit between the two businesses. Britannia had a number of staff that had worked there for a long time so we worked hard to minimise any disruption they may have felt.
At the time of the acquisition Richard Hornbrook, Chelsea's Chief Executive, reiterated the importance of the deal as demonstrating part of our growth strategy...
In late 2005, we decided to research what Chelsea's brand means to our customers.
Although we were in no doubt that our brand meant significant, positive things to most members, we wanted to ensure that we were reinforcing the right messages.
Since then, we've been freshening up our literature and improving our written communications.
It's a slow process (particularly to ensure that it's not an expensive activity!), and we have a long way to go, but those who have seen our new style say that it's clearer, fresher and more modern, without losing anything that our members love about Chelsea.
Why not let us know what you think? Email: cr@thechelsea.co.uk
We are working on various brand building and awareness programmes to enhance our brand.
