Nationwide cash card?

Lovecraft_2

Hello, I followed the advice here and applied for a Nationwide Flexaccount in order to obtain their debit card, since I travel quite a bit and the low charges worldwide would be very useful.

However, after finishing the application I was offered a "cash card". What exactly is this, and what's the difference with a debit card? Would still have the low charge (0.84%) when withdrawing money overseas?

Thanks.

stephane_2

The Nationwide cash card is for their basic account and "no" it will not give you any type of low charges to withdraw money abroad, you cannot have a cheque book or overdraft. This type of account is given generally to people on benefits, poor credit or no credit history. It will allow you to pay in most UK shops, withdraw money but should allow you to pay in most outlets within Europe.

System

This is not accurate.

The cashcard will give you commission free access to the Cirrus network of cash machines (which is MasterCard's cash machine network).

There is note on Nationwide's website that they only pass on the costs for the Debit card (which is Visa) at the moment.

It cannot be used in shops, abroad or in the UK, however.

stephane wrote: »

The Nationwide cash card is for their basic account and "no" it will not give you any type of low charges to withdraw money abroad, you cannot have a cheque book or overdraft. This type of account is given generally to people on benefits, poor credit or no credit history. It will allow you to pay in most UK shops, withdraw money but should allow you to pay in most outlets within Europe.

stephane_2

Sorry its my mistake
Hope the following will answer your question

Will I be charged for withdrawing money abroad? (Taken from Nationwide Site)
(No. Initially, only Visa debit card transactions will have a fee applied. Your cash card is run by a different provider and is only available for withdrawing cash (it does not have facilities to make purchases online or at retailers). Our Cash Card Account is our Basic Bank Account and is available/suitable for customers who meet the Basic Bank Account criteria)

stephane_2

To be honest If you can only have a basic bank account, then the Nationwide one is probably one of the worth one in my own opinion. If you go for a basic account with someone like Natwest, you'll be able to withdraw cash, pay in shops in the UK, over the internet but as well pay in shops around the world (widely accessible around EU)

Lovecraft_2

Thanks for the answers. So for the purposes of withdrawing money from ATMs abroad, this cash card is even better that the debit card? Seems to be too good to be true, but if it is, it should be added to the best cards section.

mystic_trev

Lovecraft wrote: »

Thanks for the answers. So for the purposes of withdrawing money from ATMs abroad, this cash card is even better that the debit card? Seems to be too good to be true, but if it is, it should be added to the best cards section.

Yes it is currently the best card for using abroad as there are still NO charges for using it outside tthe EU.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1745405&highlight=

Lovecraft_2

stephane wrote: »

This type of account is given generally to people on benefits, poor credit or no credit history.

Is this so? I then wonder why they've offered me something like that. While it's true that I've been living in the UK for only a bit over 4 years, I've been in full time employment since, with a salary way above the UK average, and having a bank account with HSBC, Visa gold cc and Amex cc and Platinum charge card, which I always pay in full.
I rent privately and don't have a mortgage for the moment, can this be the reason for having such a poor record?

stephane_2

If you are talking about the Nationwide cash card being the best around sorry but I think NOT. Ok, you may not pay commission on withdrawing money abroad but you are SO restricted into what you can do with it. And to see real benefits to the card, you would have to travel every other week to see real benefits. For my work I travel within Europe 3/4 times a week and having a card like that I would feel really stuck.

stephane_2

Lovecraft wrote: »

Is this so? I then wonder why they've offered me something like that. While it's true that I've been living in the UK for only a bit over 4 years, I've been in full time employment since, with a salary way above the UK average, and having a bank account with HSBC, Visa gold cc and Amex cc and Platinum charge card, which I always pay in full.
I rent privately and don't have a mortgage for the moment, can this be the reason for having such a poor record?

If you are having already a bank account with HSBC and were not planning to move all your banking with nationwide then it might be the reason why you were offered this type of account. If everything you say above is correct and you have a clean credit file then there is no point accepting the cashcard from nationwide

Lovecraft_2

Well, my main point about using a Nationwide cash/debit card is to simply avoid charges at ATM's abroad.
For example, I'll spend the whole next September in Argentina, where there's an extra USD2.50 charge imposed by local banks over the usual charge your bank charges, and (I still need to confirm if this has been lifted or not, it was the case last year), you can only withdraw about £50 each time, so to withdraw significant amounts of money, you have to do many transactions, therefore many charges.
HSBC debit card will charge about £2.50 plus 2.50% load for each transaction, so that can be a significant amount after a month of frequent withdrawals.