CHILDREN'S savings are set for a boost after an award-winning firm dropped Tunbridge Wells from its name after 120 years.

The historic transformation of Tunbridge Wells Equitable Friendly Society into The Children's Mutual aims to win extra business and give parents, grandparents and godparents a one-stop shop for kids' financial products. It is Britain's first financial institution to focus on children's savings and possibly the first in the world.

The society, Kent Company Of The Year in last year's Kent Business Awards, already has 70 per cent of the children's savings market, with Baby, Youngster and University bonds proving popular.

But David White, the society's chief executive, said that four out of five children had no regular savings put aside for them. Market research showed that parents wanted to save for their children but did not know where to go.

Without regular savings, life would be hard for young people and their parents when the big bills started to come in for car, home, wedding, gap year travel and university education. Only this week, the Government announced that a typical student could expect to leave the best universities with debts of around £21,000.

Mr White said the name change was a "groundbreaking initiative" that had been planned for two years. He expected the change to triple annual income from £10 million to £30m over the next few years.

The society, based in St John's Road, Tunbridge Wells, employs 190 staff, has 320,000 members and assets of £600m.

Mr White said it would be folly to compete with the big financial institutions. It was important to specialise and the society had turned itself into "what the consumers say they want."

He added: "What we're here for is to help mums and dads plan for the future and the best way of solving the problem is to start saving for your youngsters as early as you can."

Despite dropping the Tunbridge Wells name, the society remained just as committed to the town, Mr White said.

"We're proud of our 120-year history. What we have to do to prosper in the future is make sure we have the best possible chance of attracting new business to the society.

"I would say to the people of Tunbridge Wells that we employ 190 people here and support the local community in various ways. The best possible way we can keep supporting the community and keep providing jobs for people in the town is to make sure that we are successful going forward.

"The fastest way of going backwards is standing still. The risks to the society would have been to have not taken the bold step we are taking."