NatWest in 'MoneySense' shocker... 23 January 2009 at 1:24AM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in Savings & Investments 44 replies 4.8K views

Myrmidon_J

Natwest MoneySense advisers pushed own loans

NatWest's MoneySense advisers promoted the bank's own mortgages on two out of five occasions when mystery-shopped by Money Marketing despite the bank advertising the service as "impartial" non-sales advice.

(Full article: http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=179530&d=pnd2&h=pndh2&f=pndf2 )

Is anyone really surprised?

I find the NatWest 'MoneySense' concept a little nauseating, to be honest.

I think a recent survey of the major banks in the UK found that 100% were planning to offer "full advice" within three years. However, this was before the 'credit crunch' (etc.) exposed them as clueless charlatans...

Has anyone had a good experience with 'MoneySense', or indeed, any bank sales force? (Sorry, I mean 'adviser'?)

sons_2

Hate the concept of this, just a trick to get more sales.

mandi

They must think we all came up the river on a banana boat :rolleyes:

ebyard

Even as a loyal NatWest customer, I find this concept very stupid. It's obvious to anyone that any business would never pay staff to do something that doesn't generate income in some way. NW are trying to pull the wool but it's not going to work on most people, I would hope!

Whenever I go into my branch to pay a cheque in, they always say "oh, have you had an account review recently? We can save you money, you know" to which I once said "ok, let's see you save me money" so I had a chat with someone, and their solution to save me money was to get me to open an Advantage Gold account for £15 a month. Hmmm!!

I just said, err no thanks, stop trying to sell me stuff. Bye.

Ed :-)

dunstonh

It comes as no surprise to me at all. Back in my banking days I was involved in a new role that was meant to have no sales pressure or incentives attached to it. That was the line from head office and regional office. However, at branch levels, the management there put pressure on. They are the ones that write your reports and decide how much your payrise is going to be. So, it puts the staff involved between a rock and a hard place.

purch

One of the 'muppets' was trying to talk to me in my branch the other day.

From what I could tell, my 11 yo has a far greater grasp of Finance than she appeared to have !!!!

dunstonh

purch wrote: »

One of the 'muppets' was trying to talk to me in my branch the other day.

From what I could tell, my 11 yo has a far greater grasp of Finance than she appeared to have !!!!

All they get is 8 hours training. You cannot train anything useful in just 8 hours.

Inactive

I find it all somewhat ironic that NatWest choose such a time to introduce this scheme, when they have demonstrated so well, that they cannot run their own affairs.:rolleyes:

456789

I said this would happen when it was first started.......

chesky369

I was actually rather surprised when I first saw the ad that they were allowed to even give the impression that they would give impartial advice - but given the track record of our financial service authorities, I suppose I shouldn't have been; they let banks get away with murder.

Inactive

chesky369 wrote: »

they let banks get away with murder.

Indeed, which is exactly what got us all in this mess in the first place.;)