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Building society offers £1,000 windfalls
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Savers and borrowers with the Bradford & Bingley Building Society will receive shares worth about £1,000 each when it converts to a bank.
The payout sums are expected to benefit up to three million people.
The exact windfall will depend on the company's value when it floats on the stock market, likely to be at the end of next year.
But society bosses have announced there will be a flat-rate payment of shares to all eligible members.
Summer vote
Mortgage holders must have held a mortgage with the society on 25 April and still hold that mortgage at the date of conversion.
Savers must have had at least £100 in share accounts on 25 April this year. They must also still hold a savings account at the time of conversion and have savings of £100 at a date yet to be specified by the society.
Members who have both a mortgage and a qualifying savings account will receive double the share allocation.
The conversion is still subject to a members' vote next summer.
Cost a fortune
But the move - forced on the society by campaigners wanting windfalls and against the will of its managers - has been condemned by the Save Our Building Societies group.
Bob Goodall of SOBS said: "A one-off windfall will cost mortgage customers, in particular, a fortune in more expensive mortgage payments."
He said they would pay through the nose for the rest of the mortgage term and a windfall would be peanuts by comparison
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27 Apr 99 | Your Money |
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Bradford & Bingley windfall |
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17 Mar 99 | e-cyclopedia |
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Carpetbaggers: Money for old thread |
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