Almost £2 billion poured into the coffers of Nationwide in September — double the normal monthly take — as panicked savers transferred their cash from Northern Rock to the UK’s biggest building society.

However, Graham Beale, Nationwide chief executive, yesterday hit out at Britain’s handling of the credit crisis that caused Northern Rock’s funding problems.

He said that the tripartite (Treasury, Bank of England and Financial Services Authority) responsible for the country’s financial health had failed to act decisively in the face of a global liquidity freeze. “When this happens in continental Europe, or the US, it is dealt with quickly and decisively and life goes on,” Mr Beale said.

“What I’d like to see is greater clarity on where accountability and responsibility lies between the Bank of England, the Treasury and the FSA. If we get another crisis like this, I’d like to see it dealt with in a more professional way.”

Yesterday, it emerged that Northern Rock’s borrowing from the Bank of England could have risen to £26 billion, up £1.1 billion on the previous week. Northern Rock’s board is considering offers for all, or part, of the company. The bank’s board is speaking daily and a decision could be made within a fortnight, even by the weekend.

Fresh details of the Northern Rock proposal from Alfred Gooding, the Welsh businessman, emerged yesterday.

His Tyne Consortium is thought to include Chip Kruger, the American who once ran Greenwich Capital, Royal Bank of Scotland’s aggressive wholesale bank in the US. Other directors are Robert Morris of US private equity group Olympus Partners, Bruce Fireman, a past managing director of Investec Securities, and Christopher Yates, director of Credit Lyonnais Securities.

Announcing its interim results yesterday, Nationwide said it took £4.1 billion in deposits in the six months to September 30, a 96 per cent increase on the same period last year.

Much of the cash is thought to be money stripped from Northern Rock during Britain’s first bank run in more than a century. “I’ve got no way of showing that, but anecdotally we did have a lot of customers from Northern Rock coming in who were shaken by events and looking for a safe haven,” Mr Beale said.

The huge savings inflow meant that Nationwide had more than enough cash to fund its mortgage lending for the first six months of the year. The building society’s net lending hit £3.6 billion in the half-year. This was down from £5.6 billion in 2006 but Mr Beale attributed this to a tightening of lending criteria.

Mr Beale said that he would not be tempted to pick up books of mortgages from Northern Rock should they come up. He said Northern Rock’s mortgages were, on average, sold at too high a loan-to-value to be attractive to Nationwide. The political element of the bank’s sale was an additional deterrent. “I’m not going to get involved in any form of auction,” he said. “I don’t need the conflict and the aggravation.”

Retail deposits pay for 71 per cent of Nationwide’s lending, with the remainder borrowed from other banks.

Mr Beale expected the interbank market to be volatile at least until February. “In the last couple of weeks it has got quite difficult again on the back of US investment banks and UK clearing banks starting to announce writedowns,” he said. “Until we get to the year-end cycle we are going to have an unsettled market.”

Underlying pre-tax profits rose 29 per cent to £394.4 million and pre-tax profits, which include the cost of the merger with Portman Building Society and subsequent disposals, were up 1 per cent to £338.3 million.

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