Nationwide - Not so different?

Jnelhams

ReportInvestor wrote:

Midlands Co-op annual report

"...Directors took special pride in being able to reintroduce a true Co-operative dividend, enabling members to share in the success of their Society...."

That's my point, how can companies like Nationwide claim to be Mutual when really it is just a PLC without shareholders. What benefits do they really offer over any other listed bank?

ReportInvestor

With a mutual the size of Nationwide, assuming it is run efficiently :rolleyes: there may be the possibility of some small benefit to consumers.

As we have seen on this thread, since 2001 this potential benefit can move around the place pretty haphazardly and rapidly depending on the whims of directors who don't have much of a clue .

Therefore it is the task of all of us on MSE to identify what games Nationwide is currently playing in order to potentially take advantage .

ReportInvestor

Financial Mail on Sunday savages Nationwide

One U-Turn too many at Nationwide

"What in the name of mutuality is happening at Nationwide, a building society that for a long time now has tried to do the right thing by customers?

Has its executive team, in a state of flux with the impending departure of boss Philip Williamson, temporarily lost the plot?...

....One executive mistake is unfortunate, two suggests carelessness, but three in less than a year indicates something is not right at Nationwide. It needs to get back in shape before its halo shines no more."

1) The Portman merger
2) The loss of the laptop computer with 11m customers' information
3) The U-Turn on its mortgage policy where it now offers better deals to new customers buying a home than to existing customers wanting to remortgage.

More criticism from "The thrifty Scot"
It is argued that Nationwide has shot itself in the foot and damaged the whole mutual movement.

Times - Nationwide loses the moral high ground
".....Nationwide, however, has always prided itself on being different. It is the first to criticise its peers’ dirty tricks. It has an entire advertising campaign based on a dodgy financial adviser in a rival bank making customers’ lives miserable.....

.......Nationwide’s policy was unsustainable. The society was losing ground to its rivals on loans for newly purchased homes. It should have thought carefully about basing an advertising campaign around a potentially unsustainable promise; it is the mismatch between the stated position and the new policy that is causing its members so much angst....."

Independent - Proud to be different? Not any more
"....It's not just the mortgage issue that will worry customers. If Nationwide can U-turn on something as important as this, what else might it be prepared to do?
........... maybe fees for current accounts are more likely than was first thought...."