Nationwide to rescue Dunfermline

I have learned that Nationwide is likely to emerge as the buyer of Dunfermline's branches, good loans and deposits. And it will also take on Dunfermline's 530 staff.

The Treasury will take over £1bn of commercial property lending and acquired portfolios of self-cert and buy-to-let mortgages.

Announcement should be before branches open this morning.

Update 07:56: Nationwide is - in many ways - the natural buyer of the good parts of Dunfermline Building Society.

It is the biggest building society, by far.

And it has a strong track record of absorbing weaker societies.

What should reassure Dunfermline's members is that it also preserves the brand names of the societies it buys - so there are still Cheshire and Derbyshire branches, even though these two societies have recently been bought by Nationwide.

But Nationwide will not be taking on the bits of Dunfermline that are seriously loss-making.

These are commercial property loans and portfolios of buy-to-let and self-cert mortgages - with a gross value of £1bn.

These less attractive assets will be transferred to the public sector; they will become yet another banking burden on taxpayers.

And as the dust settles on a financial crisis that is relatively small but politically fraught, the big unanswered question is why Dunfermline took such risks that ultimately cost the society its independence.