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LONDON, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Five British financial servicestrade associations, including the British Bankers' Association(BBA) and Payments UK, are set to merge to give them morelobbying clout and to cut costs.
Britain's banks proposed earlier this year merging nineassociations and set up a panel to review options, which onFriday proposed bringing together five bodies and creating closeties with two more.
The panel proposed merging the BBA, Payments UK, the Councilof Mortgage Lenders, the UK Cards Association and the AssetBased Finance Association.
Nine of Britain's big banks, including HSBC, Lloyds and Barclays, and building society Nationwidelast year told the trade associations they needed to considermerging as they often duplicated lobbying efforts. They alsosaid the associations needed a stronger voice on Europeanregulation and should also cut costs.
"A new trade association would be able to represent theindustry more effectively because its voice would carry greaterweight," Ed Richards, the former communications regulator whowas appointed to lead the review, said.
"Having a single point of contact will also be welcomed bypolicymakers and will reduce duplication of effort."
The review also said the new group could cut tradeassociation fees by up to 30 percent.
The Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation think-tankhas estimated banks spend upwards of 50 million pounds ($76.25million) on the top 10 trade associations they belong to. Thethink-tank has also found significant overlap in membership oftrade associations, with about 60 percent of UK Payments Councilmembers also members of the BBA.
The review said the new group would become a close partnerwith UK Payments Administration and Financial Fraud Action UK.
The Building Societies Association and the Finance & LeasingAssociation said they did not want to join the group. The reviewdid not propose including some other groups it had previouslyconsidered for the merger.
The trade groups are expected to vote on the merger by theend of February and the new association is expected to belaunched in May and be fully operational by November 2016.($1 = 0.6557 pounds) (Reporting by Steve Slater; Editing by Anjuli Davies and JaneMerriman)