Bristol & West

Bristol & West (B&W) is a former building society in the United Kingdom, one of the first to be demutualised to become a commercial bank; it is now a division of the Bank of Ireland. Bristol & West has its headquarters in Bristol, England. The bank's main activity was mortgage lending for residential and commercial customers, although in 2009 its business was transferred to Bank of Ireland and it became a shell company.

In 2005, Bristol & West sold its savings and investment business to the Britannia Building Society. The deal also included Bristol & West's branch network, as well as its direct savings business for an estimated £80 million.

Bank of Ireland continued to offer mortgages to intermediaries, packagers and direct customers through the Bristol & West brand at its main processing centres in Bristol and Solihull; this meant the closure of a number of smaller mortgage processing centres throughout the country. In 2007 the estimated profit from this mortgage venture was £52 million.

Following the unprecedented markets throughout 2008, Bank of Ireland took the decision to limit mortgage lending. Following a reduced quarterly profit in November the bank issued a warning that profits for 2008 would be 'significantly reduced' after suffering large losses through the collapse of a number of American banks and the downturn in both the English & Irish economies.

On 8 January 2009 Bank of Ireland announced to the stock market that it would close its Solihull and Reading processing centres (the Reading Centre currently processes Bank of Ireland Mortgages only) and as of 9 January 2009, Bristol & West Mortgages would cease accepting new customers.

The UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) fined the Bristol & West subsidiary Chase de Vere Financial Solutions for the "approval and issue of a misleading direct offer promotion" in December 2003.