Highlights from the BSA Conference 2026

We were delighted to exhibit at the Building Societies Annual Conference 2026, hosted by the Building Societies Association at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) on 28–29 April.

Across two days, the event brought together leaders from building societies, regulators, technology providers, and the wider financial services ecosystem. It was a valuable forum to explore the future of the mutual sector - from growth and innovation to resilience, AI, and evolving member expectations. As always, the conversations were candid, insightful, and forward-looking.

Throughout the event, one theme came through clearly in the conversations on our stand: disruption is no longer occasional – it’s constant. 

To bring it to life, we introduced our ‘Catch It Reaction Ring’ - a simple way of demonstrating how organisations respond under pressure. It sparked a lot of interest and opened the door to some honest conversations, reinforcing a key point: reacting quickly is only part of the story. The real question is: are you reacting to disruption, or designed for it? 

Too often, organisations deal with each disruption in isolation, while the underlying operating model stays the same. That cycle of reaction is what we help organisations break.

The shift is towards adaptive enterprise resilience - operating in a way that expects disruption, rather than being surprised by it.

That message carried through into Bryan Hurcombe's (Director at DCR Partners) session, “Ignore the Hype – This is the Minimum Viable Building Society,” where he challenged delegates to look past the noise around AI and transformation and focus on what actually matters: a core operating model that is resilient, adaptable, and works under pressure.

Key themes & highlights

• AI is moving from experimentation to implementation - but the focus on responsible, practical AI (rather than AI for its own sake) was encouraging. Several sessions explored how to embed AI meaningfully, which reflected themes from our recent webinar "AI in Internal Audit: From Capability to Implementation". If you missed it, you can catch up on-demand here. 

• Regulation is evolving - the Mutuals Landscape report and the removal of the sourcebook are creating real opportunity, but boards need to engage actively and avoid over-interpreting regulatory requirements.

• Resilience remains front and centre - from cybersecurity to third party risk, the sector knows the threats are growing. The question is whether responses are keeping pace.

• The future of mutuality is being actively shaped - the BSA’s 2050 futures work and CEO strategy sessions signal a sector that’s serious about long-range thinking, not just short-term survival.

• People and culture matter - sessions on diversity, community growth, and customer-led strategy were a reminder that the fundamentals of what makes building societies distinctive remain as relevant as ever.

Let’s continue the conversation

If we didn’t get a chance to connect during the event, we’d still love to hear from you.

Whether you’re exploring how to move from reactive to adaptive resilience, strengthening your operating model, or navigating transformation in an increasingly disrupted environment - get in touch.

From Cyber Resilience through to Resilience, Incident and Crisis management, Third-Party Risk, and Internal Audit and Risk Advisory, we work with building societies to design operating models that don’t just respond to disruption – but are built for it.