A building society has begun offering face-to-face financial advice from today.

Skipton is to provide restricted financial advice on pension and retirement planning, inheritance tax planning, and investment planning services.

This comes after regulatory approval was granted to integrate Skipton Financial Services Ltd (SFS), its wholly owned financial advice subsidiary, into Skipton Building Society.

The company stated that there were no compulsory redundancies as a result of the two businesses joining. They already share the same head office building in North Yorkshire.

The company has also launched a digital tool for financial planning queries, which produces a personalised report for people to download.

David Cutter, Skipton Building Society’s group chief executive, said: “Today marks a significant day for Skipton as we respond to a growing need on the high street for accessible financial advice. Many providers have withdrawn from this area completely, and others will only see people with significant sums of money to invest.

"Skipton, the UK’s fourth largest building society, now offers financial advice in one place, for the mass market.

“The past year has seen radical changes made to the pensions arena, which has left a generation of people in need of somewhere to turn to make sense of everything.

"There’s an even greater need for people to receive not only mortgage and saving support, but also investment and pensions advice, something that so few other firms are capable or willing to deliver on the high street to the mass market.”