Members of the Yorkshire Building Society have voted in favour of a merger with the Chelsea Building Society.

A majority of 86.68 per cent of of savers and 85.44 per cent of borrowers passed the resolutions to merge with Chelsea, which has a branch in George Street, Oxford.

Chelsea mebers had already approved the move.

The merged society will have 2.7 million members, assets of £35bn and a national network of 178 branches.

Iain Cornish, chief executive of Yorkshire Building Society, said: “I am delighted that both our members and the Chelsea members have recognised the benefits of this merger and voted in favour of it.

“The financial services market has changed fundamentally over the last two years and scale is increasingly important to the efficient operation of building societies and access to funding markets. Our members can, however, be assured that we will not become too big to offer the personal service which we pride ourselves on. “