The Building Societies Association (BSA) represents 43 UK building societies and credit unions. Its website is the single most important channel for reaching members, regulators, government, media, and the public. But the platform was not keeping pace with what those audiences expected.
The legacy site was expensive to maintain, difficult for the internal team to manage, and lacked the functionality to serve a modern membership organisation. Members struggled with registration and access. Engagement was low. The site did little to surface the depth of insight and sector expertise that the BSA produced - research, policy updates, events, and member resources were buried or hard to find.
The BSA’s internal team also needed a better content management experience. Publishing updates, managing events, and tailoring content for different audiences all required more technical involvement than it should have. The team was spending time chasing workarounds instead of producing content.
The challenge was twofold: build an authoritative, easy-to-use resource that members and external audiences would actually engage with, and give the BSA team a platform they could run independently - without ongoing reliance on developers for routine changes.
"We have been delighted with the level of professionalism and quality Distinction have provided. They understand our needs and our members’ needs very well and we worked well together to deliver a great website. The new platform has made a real difference to how we engage with our members and how efficiently our team can operate"
We started with a thorough review of the existing platform, interviewing stakeholders and analysing how members and external audiences were actually using the site. The findings shaped three clear priorities for the rebuild: improve member engagement, support member retention, and reduce operational costs.
On engagement, we redesigned the site with a member-first approach. Registration and login were simplified. Content was restructured so that the most-used resources - events, policy updates, sector data, and member tools - were easy to find and accessible without friction. We integrated email marketing and introduced role-based personalisation so that different audiences saw content relevant to them.
On retention, we focused on content discoverability. The BSA produces a significant volume of research, guidance, and sector commentary, but much of it was difficult to find on the old site. We built a structured content model that made this material searchable, browsable, and connected - so members had a reason to return regularly rather than only visiting when prompted by an email.
On cost, we replaced the outdated and expensive-to-maintain system with a modern, scalable platform. The new CMS gave the BSA’s team full editorial control - structured templates for different content types, a straightforward publishing workflow, and no need for developer involvement on day-to-day updates. This reduced both direct technology costs and the internal time spent managing the site.
The impact was measurable across every priority the project set out to address.
In a post-launch survey, 92% of members rated the new platform as 'far better' than the previous one, with the remaining 8% stating it was 'better' or 'about the same'.
Event registrations increased by 47% - a direct reflection of how much easier the new platform made it for members to find and sign up for events. Session duration increased by 9.5%, indicating that visitors were engaging more deeply with the content rather than bouncing. Registered online users grew by 7%, meaning the BSA was not just serving its existing audience better but attracting new members to the platform.
Page speed improved by 12%, which contributed to a better experience across the board - particularly for users accessing the site on mobile during events and conferences.
Operationally, the BSA’s team moved from a slow, developer-dependent publishing process to managing the site independently. Content updates that previously required a support request were being handled same-day by the internal team within weeks of launch.
The platform now gives the BSA a digital presence that matches its authority in the sector - a site that members, regulators, and government bodies take seriously, backed by a CMS that the team can actually manage without external support.
