GRAEME Dalziel, chief executive of Dunfermline Building Society, Scotland's biggest mutual, is to step down at the end of this month.

GRAEME Dalziel, chief executive of Dunfermline Building Society, Scotland's biggest mutual, is to step down at the end of this month.

Dalziel, a quietly charismatic Glaswegian accountant who cut his corporate teeth at Scottish Equitable, then as head of finance at Scottish Widows, in the summer celebrated 10 years with the company as chief executive or chief executive apparent.

Jim Willens, a Scot who recently took up the role of chief operating officer after losing out on the top job at Nationwide, is expected to be named as Dalziel's successor.

Willens is understood to have been initially interviewed for a non-executive director's role on Dunfermline's board.

Nonetheless, Dalziel has led Dunfermline Building Society into the position of being regarded as one of the jewels in Scotland's financial services crown.

The mutual last year delivered a 40% increase in pre-tax profits to £13.4m and an increased mutuality benefit of £18.5m compared with £17m in 2006.

As the economy continues to dim and a beleaguered banking sector continues to be pummelled, such success has acquired a certain lustre.

Over the past 18 months, credit crunch fears have, if anything, been a bonus to the building society, which has seen its savings increase from £80m last year to £100m this year, and it hopes to double that figure.

Some 90% of Dunfermline's customers are based north of the border.

But even if the current uncertainties make saving more fashionable, Dalziel has no illusions that competition for savings is heating up.

Nonetheless, according to weekend reports, Dunfermline is today expected to reveal that it has also struggled as the economic downturn and credit crunch continue to tighten their grip.

Willens, who joined Nationwide as a management trainee in 1978 and rose through the ranks, is expected to take up the chief executive's role at Dunfermline on January 1, 2009.

Along with Dunfermline's pioneering work in providing private finance to housing associations, Dalziel has claimed to be most proud of the company's record on customer service, an area where the firm has consistently innovated.