Steve Blore, a spokesman at Nationwide said: "We are at an early stage but short term we will be writing to members of The Derbyshire and The Cheshire to alert them to the merger. We will be looking at our marketing strategy beyond that in the next few weeks."
Nationwide said the building societies will keep their brands and continue to operate from individual branches. All three are top 12 building societies and are users of DM.
Nationwide handles its direct marketing in house and some are speculating it will do like wise for the Derbyshire and Cheshire societies. Derbyshire currently works with TDA while Cheshire has recently worked with software supplier SmartFocus.
Ian Winton, managing director of Wand, the direct agency of The Norwich and Peterborough Building Society, said: "Ultimately it would make sense to migrate customers over to the Nationwide brand - all marketing accounts would then be up for grabs. Longterm Nationwide will need to come up with a strong strategy to convince customers this is for the best."
Financial Services
Nationwide will review direct strategy in wake of merger
LONDON - Nationwide has said it will be assessing its direct marketing strategy over the next few weeks as it prepares to merge with Derbyshire Building Society and Cheshire Building Society.
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