Kent Reliance is a banking services provider and trading name of OneSavings Bank plc, based in Kent, England. It took its name from the Kent Reliance Building Society, which had been created in 1986 and incorporated Chatham Reliance, Dover District, Herne Bay and Kent and Canterbury. On 1 February 2011, Kent Reliance Building Society transferred its business to a new bank, OneSavings Bank plc, following the purchase of a stake in its business by private equity firmJC Flowers. OneSavings Bank plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. It is a specialist lending and retail savings group authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority, part of the Bank of England, and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority. It operates through specialist brokers and independent financial advisors in sub-sectors of the lending market. These sub-sectors include Residential Mortgages, Buy to let/SME and Personal Loans. The bank is predominantly funded by retail savings originating from the Kent Reliance franchise.
History
KRBS
The company was established as Kent Reliance in 1847. KRBS was the fastest growing building society in the UK between 2003 and 2008 and was a member of the Building Societies Association. The dramatic growth of KRBS was driven in part by the establishment in 2002 of a wholly owned subsidiary, JerseyHome Loans Limited, to buy the Jersey mortgage business of Standard CharteredGrindlays Bank Ltd. By September 2008, this subsidiary had mortgages on its books of over £700 million.
Transfer to OneSavings
In July 2010 JC Flowers announced its intention to purchase a stake of Kent Reliance, forming OneSavings plc. The transfer of the business of the society to OneSavings was approved by a majority of members in November 2010. Kent Reliance Building Society converted into a provident society, Kent Reliance Provident Society, which owns a 59.9% stake in OneSavings Bank, with JC Flowers owning the remaining 40.1%. The transfer became effective on 1 February 2011 and OneSavings plc was renamed OneSavings Bank plc.
Recent years
In August 2012 the company acquired InterBay Commercial, a specialist commercial and buy to let mortgage lender, established in 2006. In September 2012 the company acquired Prestige Finance, a specialist provider of secured loans. In April 2014 the company established Heritable Development Finance, a joint venture with Heritable Capital, formed to provide financing predominantly for residential property developments for experienced property developers. OneSavings Bank was the subject of an initial public offering in May 2014. In December 2015 the company established Rochester Mortgages to acquire the mortgage book of a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank. In March 2019 it was announced that the company would merge with Charter Court Financial Services. The transaction was competed in October 2019.
Operations
KRBS was notable as the only member of the UK building society sector to have offshored administrative work to India, via its wholly owned subsidiaries, Easiprocess and EasiOption. The KRBS Group employed significantly more staff in India than it did in the UK.
