Nationwide Building Society has completed its first ever UK panel, with five firms making the grade.

Allen & Overy (A&O) is the only magic circle firm to have been appointed to the roster, joining Eversheds, Burges Salmon, Olswang and Nabarro on the panel.

The building society launched the review at the end of last year under general counsel Liz Kelly, and made its final decision in May after short-listing a handful of firms.

Firms were told of their appointment earlier this month and met with the bank at A&O's City headquarters on Monday (13 July) to discuss expectations and objectives for the year.

Nationwide already operated a handful of sub-panels, including commercial property, commercial lending and lending control, which were not reviewed as part of the tender.

Kelly said: "Like many in-house teams we had to re-align ourselves with the business to ensure that we could continue to provide high quality and relevant advice. We took a risk-based approach to determine what to retain in-house and what would be supported by external firms so that the in-house function could concentrate on more significant work where can add the greatest value."

The completed UK panel is the first since Nationwide took over stricken building society Dunfermline in March. That deal generated roles for a raft of firms, with A&O taking the lead role for longstanding client Nationwide, fielding a team under corporate partner Alistair Asher. Dunfermline turned to Scottish firm Dundas & Wilson.

Nationwide's panel comes after recent reviews by Barclays, JP Morgan and Banco Santander, which has finalised its UK panel in the wake of integrating the Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley brands, Barclays and JP Morgan.

Berwin Leighton Paisner, Eversheds, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Nabarro are all new appointments to Santander's new UK panel, with A&O, Slaughter and May, Norton Rose and Ashurst thought to be among the remaining 12 firms on the roster.