Mergers and take overs in the financial seector have been very much a feature since the start of the recession.

The credit crisis in the UK is of course still continuing while the rest of the G20 nations have all eventually come out of the recession.

The first mortgage lender that caused panic in the banking, mortgage and remortgage industries was of course the stricken Northern Rock Building Society which is now totally Government owned.

No one can ever forget the queues of panicing people waiting outside Northern Rock Offices throughout the whole of of Britain demanding that they lift all their money from their accounts fearing that their life savings were about to evaporate and disappear down the drain.

The Government took over the ailing society and no member of the public lost out as a result.

After which the RBS sailed into extremely stormy waters and had to be bailed out yet again by the UK tax payer and the major part of that bank is now also tax payer owned.

The recession was to a large extent caused by the reckless lending in loans mortgages and remortgages by these very banks.

The Northern Rock before, their famous collapse, advanced 125% mortgages and remortgages. This meant that a mortgage or remortgage borrower could borrow up to 25% more than the property was worth.

This was all very well when property prices were rising at a fast pace , but when prices started to fall the society really was in serious and deep trouble.

RBS and HBOS were also guilty of reckless lending, and in particular in the sctor of business loans and were advancing loans and commercial mortgages of mega millions to properry developers who would have been regarded as spivs in the past.

All this has been tightened up and such things as self certifications of income for self employed loan, mortgage and remortgage borrowers is no longer available.

The merging and take over of banks and building societies always initiates big chamges as has been witnessed up until now.

With today’s announcement of the merger between The Chelsea Building Society and The Yorkshire it is to be anticipated that underwriting criteria changes will occur with them as it always has with other mortgage lenders in the past

Of course even before the recession mergers and take overs did occur, most notably when the Spanish giant, Santander, took over The Abbey National Building Society and later on The Alliance and Leicester also became Spanish owned.