Skipton Building Society to merge with rival Scarborough

  Skipton Building Society and Scarborough Building Society are to merge due to “difficult trading conditions”.   The combined group will become the UK’s fifth-largest building society, with 860,000 members and £16bn of assets.   John Carrier, chief executive of Scarborough, said: “We believe this merger is in the long-term best interests of our members, our people and our local community, and can only serve to enhance the building society sector.”   He said that a further house-price fall would lead to an “unacceptable reduction” in its capital resources.   A statement said that there would be no compulsory redundancies and that the Scarborough head office will continue to be used. The merged group will take the Skipton name.   The Scarborough has 200,000 members, nine branches and assets of £2.85bn; Skipton has 660,000 members, 84 branches and assets of £13.4bn.   The deal should be completed early in 2009, subject to approval from the Financial Services Authority and the Office of Fair Trading.   In September, Nationwide took over two smaller building societies, the Cheshire and the Derbyshire, and last month the Yorkshire Building Society took over its smaller rival the Barnsley Building Society as the sector struggles in the face of a national recession.   helen.roxburgh@egi.co.uk