John Goodfellow, BSA Chair, spoke to its annual conference. He reflected on the last year and where building societies have fared badly or relatively well. He spoke on the challenges societies now face and practical and regulatory priorities for the future. The sector had two main criticisms of the regulatory response to the crisis. It felt it was a mistake to reduce interest rates so quickly and sharply leaving societies with little choice but to follow the cuts or lose money by not making their own cuts so savage. The other main concern was that "low risk, prudently run" societies faced a bill for helping to bail out less prudently run banks.