Your Questions

As well as the fact we are a strong and secure mutual, we are members of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). This protects 100% of your savings with the Society up to a limit of £50,000 per person.

If you have a joint account, you're covered for £50,000 per person ie £100,000 in total. If you don't currently have a joint account but wish to add another person to take advantage of this, we're happy to do so. However, it's worth noting there could be some implications from having your account in joint names; for example, doing so could affect the amount of tax you pay or who can vote at our AGM.

However, before you change your account, our branch staff can discuss these with you to ensure you're fully informed. Alternatively, you can call our Helpline on 08458 501700* where an adviser can help you.

In late 2008, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) made changes to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). These were aimed at ensuring customers with savings in two merging societies at the date of merger are still protected to the same level as before, providing both societies' names are retained in some form.

All Scarborough Building Society savings accounts will be transferred to Skipton, as planned, but will retain the name ‘Scarborough' in the account title. Passbooks and statements for these accounts will all contain the Scarborough name in the account title. Skipton will also maintain a separate record of all former Scarborough saving members.

The FSA has confirmed that, by keeping Scarborough savings accounts separate from Skipton, investors with over £50,000 in Skipton and Scarborough at the date of merger will still be eligible for ‘double cover' through the FSCS.

The basic building society model is, and always has been, that it raises money from investors to lend to borrowers. This is reinforced by the restrictions which prevent societies from raising more than a certain percentage of funds from the wholesale money markets - unlike banks who have no such restrictions.

For the past few years our lending has been more than covered by retail deposits (170% in 2008), although in previous years, when we were looking to grow our asset base more aggressively, we did raise some of our capacity from the market.

Like most top-20 societies, we have a Treasury portfolio consisting of a mix of both short- and long-dated instruments, mostly Floating Rate Notices, Certificates of Deposit and Gilts. We'd stress though we don't have any exposure to US toxic instruments emanating from the subprime market.

Every time someone contacts us about their mortgage or savings account, we ask a series of questions to verify the person is who they say they are; not just their date of birth or address but more detailed information, such as what other accounts are held with the Society or what was the amount of a recent transaction. In our branches, a signature is also required for withdrawals, which is then checked with the accompanying passbook; and the fact that we know our regular customers so well means we can be even more vigilant.

However, it's not just your accounts with Skipton that should be protected from someone pretending to be you. That's why Callcredit – a credit reference agency which is also one of our subsidiary companies – offers you a way to monitor your credit record 24-hours a day, so you will know immediately if anything is amiss. Call them on 0113 244 1555 or visit callcredit.co.uk to find out more.

In late 2008, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) made changes to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). These were aimed at ensuring customers with savings in two merging societies at the date of merger are still protected to the same level as before, providing both societies' names are retained in some form.

All Scarborough Building Society savings accounts will be transferred to Skipton, as planned, but will retain the name ‘Scarborough' in the account title. Passbooks and statements for these accounts will all contain the Scarborough name in the account title. Skipton will also maintain a separate record of all former Scarborough saving members.

The FSA has confirmed that, by keeping Scarborough savings accounts separate from Skipton, investors with over £50,000 in Skipton and Scarborough at the date of merger will still be eligible for ‘double cover' through the FSCS.

Skipton Building Society is a mutual, owned by our members (customers with savings or mortgages with the Society) and not by another organisation. This means we don't have shareholders like banks and therefore don't have to pay any dividends from the profit we make. Instead, our profit is re-invested in the Society, meaning we can offer better rates and maintain a financially robust business. It's a simple arrangement but one we have stuck to for over 150 years.

The difference between a mutual like Skipton and a bank is the money we lend on mortgages comes from members' savings – you save, we lend, it isn't much more complicated than that. The banks, however, rely heavily on borrowing money from each other to fund their mortgages. When the credit crunch hit, banks could no longer be sure of this source of money and so had problems.

We are not in this position. Instead, we follow the straightforward, yet simple, principle of lending on mortgages from savings that members deposit with us. In addition, we've always had a prudent approach to lending; this means we have never offered mortgages of more than 95% loan to value and our buy-to-let mortgages comprise only a small proportion of our overall lending.

The failings of other institutions have been for a number of reasons. For instance, in the case of Northern Rock, much of its trouble was due to the large volumes of depositors withdrawing their savings. However, as Skipton is a mutual without a share price for hedge funds and speculators to attack, we are not affected in the same way. Also, no depositor of a building society has lost a single penny since records began, before the First World War, so we remain the safe haven we always were.

On the lending side, it is feasible the credit strain arising from imprudent lending and poor management could potentially damage a society's capital strength. But Skipton is a prudent lender and our arrears figures have always been approximately half the industry average (as measured against figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders).

Skipton isn't a clearing bank and as such, can't do certain things, such as processing a cheque. As a result, we use a variety of clearing banks to do this for us. In addition, our Treasury team deals with a range of banks as part of the borrowing and investing of funds that are required to run the Society. However, our risk-averse approach to investment means we are comfortable with the security of the clearing banks we deal with – especially as a recent announcement by the Government has effectively guaranteed their future. Even so, the safety of your money is based on your relationship with us, not our bank.

Our exposure is negligible and represents less than 1% of our capital, an easily manageable amount. This level of exposure is not significant and should not give you any cause for concern, as Skipton remains well capitalised and financially robust.