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Letter: Mutual benefit

Published 4 January 2012

From Chris Ford

McGregor Cambell’s interesting article on citizen banking exposed some horrors of the US banking system and pitfalls of P2P lending (10 December, p 38). I was puzzled that he did not mention mutualised building societies, which have existed in the UK for more than a century.

They provide relative security and exist for the benefit of just savers and borrowers, not shareholders. Is this something else, along with the National Health Service, that Americans could do well to copy from us?

Walsall, West Midlands, UK

Issue no. 2846 published 7 January 2012

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