Nationwide to ditch free transactions outside Europe and raise rates

DesG

Even with the increases, they are cheaper than everyone else for withdrawing cash abroad on a debit card.

Cheers, Des.

MiserlyMartin

Again - missing the point. Its a wrong decision to ditch commission free cards in principle. Where are our benefits of membership now. It may as well be a bank now.

King_Of_Bling

marvin wrote: »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/feb/25/nationwide-credit-card-rates

Interest rates up on both Gold and Classic cards by 2% and a charge for all credit/debit card transactions outside Europe

Thats not kool :rolleyes:

King_Of_Fools

I am with Nationwide on this, so far - they are passing on the Visa charge to those customers who use the card outside Europe. If they did not do this then all the members who did not use this facility would be subsidising those who did. In this case then this is fair. (Why should some old lady, who has her life savings with Nationwide and has already been hammered by this government's incompetent handling of the economy and never goes abroad, have to pay the fees of the majority of the users of this card, who I suspect are young professionals?)

If they start charging more than the Visa fee or for cases when there is no Visa fee like 99% of the other banks do then this becomes an unfair charge and is just profiteering.

ViolaLass

withnell wrote: »

They're still cheaper than nearly every other credit card / debit card on the market for the transactions!

the post office card is still free, but I do feel, like others, that the point is about keeping the card free. Now that there are charges, you betcha they'll start rising.

As for the little old lady who keeps all her savings in Nationwide and is therefore subsidising those who travel - what a pointless generalisation!

I'm not a 'professional' though I am young. I'm planning to work my way round the world and volunteer when I can afford to - so that makes me less of a worthy case than the 'little old lady'? As a saver with no debts, I'm 'subsidising' plenty of people but that's not really the point is it? It's not a points system where the more points you get, the more 'deserving' you are.

Since Nationwide is a BS, rather than a bank, I would rather it defend the principle of fee-free banking. And whatever they do, we, the members, should have heard about it from them first, not from a website.

King_Of_Fools

Interestingly it appears (from this BBC article) that the fee only applies to Visa card holders and not Mastercard holders.

marvin

King_Of_Fools wrote: »

Interestingly it appears (from this BBC article) that the fee only applies to Visa card holders and not Mastercard holders.

Arn't all Nationwide cards Visa?

KTF

The cashcard accounts are mastercard.

Degenerate

KTF wrote: »

The cashcard accounts are mastercard.

A cashcard can't be a Mastercard. Do you mean Cirrus?

Frontera2

Does anyone know if Nationwide are now going to start charing for cash machine withdrawals abroad then?