EBS Building Society plans to give its home loan customers full voting rights. Up to now only the society's savers, with a deposit of at least £100, had a vote. The society's members are to be asked to change the rules to give borrowers, with at least £500 outstanding, the same voting rights as the savers.

EBS has about a 250,000 savers and 120,000 of these are eligible to cast one vote each. The society reckons that about 45,000 borrowers will qualify under the new rules but some 10,000 of these already have votes as they are also savers. The changed rules will result in an additional 35,000 votes, representing 22.5 per cent of the enlarged total.