[retcon]

In the UK the 1980 banking act introduced formerly excluded commercial banks to housing loans and simultaneously increased the statutory maximum loan value from 3* single wage earners salary to 5* combined household income of married couples. Previously only mutual savings and loan member societies aka building societies could lend private housing loans. Not only now was the public forced into paying for profit margins, but access to capital enjoyed by commercial banks vastly outgunned the much more regulated thrifts who eg couldn't easily raise their offer rates above long term deposit bases. Disastrous in the up rate eighties. Louis Ranieri of Solomon Brothers fame opened The Mortgage Corporation in London and shipped in top trading talent but the thrifts not only knew nothing about their books but weren't persuaded to unload like the accidental priming of the US mortgage market. Although profit seeking it seemed only Ranieri ever gave a damn to do anything that might have saved UK S&Ls. Nothing contributed to the dissolution of the family more than this legislative enforcement of the necessity for one of any separating couple to forgo the ability to afford a home.

P.S. Increasing the lending limit naturally turbocharged inflation. Adjusting your books to manage changing rates environment requires at least functional treasury and cash desks. Into this century several household name UK mutuals turned into banks didn't have their own CHAPS terminal. (Clearing House Automated Payments. Entry level facility for a even a token treasury function. Edit: for that matter even for a small company such as ours.)

Edit: added about the rates market and the abysmal neglect of UK capital economic underpinnings. Things were so desperate and freewheeling the largest UK thrift only was persuaded to return the six billion it's actuaries deemed in excess of pension fund requirements at the time of demutualization in 2018. No carry paid. Edit2: only Ranieri.. have / gave a damn. Ed3 Louis' name correctly.