MSE News discussion. Nationwide kills cheap overseas spending

SaveTheEuro

I complained to Nationwide and received a phone call from a staff member. He made the case for charging for withdrawals abroad but I said I couldn't accept their hypocrisy. I have now started to transfer to a Santander zero account. There are no charges for foreign withdrawals. The perks thrown in are £100 cash, 5% interest on balance up to £2,500 and 6% interest on a monthly saver account. To get the Zero account there is a requirement to pay in £1,000 a month and have a Santander mortgage or an investment of £1,500. I was a fan of the Nationwide for many years and put a lot of business its way. It's a shame it has disgraced itself.

MiserlyMartin

SaveTheEuro wrote: »

I complained to Nationwide and received a phone call from a staff member. He made the case for charging for withdrawals abroad but I said I couldn't accept their hypocrisy. I have now started to transfer to a Santander zero account. There are no charges for foreign withdrawals. The perks thrown in are £100 cash, 5% interest on balance up to £2,500 and 6% interest on a monthly saver account. To get the Zero account there is a requirement to pay in £1,000 a month and have a Santander mortgage or an investment of £1,500. I was a fan of the Nationwide for many years and put a lot of business its way. It's a shame it has disgraced itself.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Nationwide is now officially crap but Santander is pure hell.

virgo17

chexum wrote: »

It may be worth checking what's better for the usage you plan - for purchases in the card's currency, there are no differences, only ATM/cash transactions.

We use the Nationwide Gold CC which is (still) free for purchases in Spain and has a good £ to € exchange rate. The FX card would be entirely for ATM withdrawls so the CaxtonFX Euro card looks best for us.

virgo17

patman99 wrote: »

I wonder if you spend a great deal of time abroad, if it is possible to open an account in a European bank, then use online banking to transfer money from your UK account to your foreign account without incurring any fees?.

We have a bank account and property in Spain. Last time I checked with Moneycorp TTT, they offer an online transfer service. The sting in the tail is that there is a £10 fee per transfer and an exchange rate that is not as good as Nationwide are currently giving.

I'd be interested to know if you come accross any other banks or institutions that will do it at a better cost.

RobertinHerts

gusmelv wrote: »

Online banking and international transfers is not the solution it might appear at first!!
I queried this with Halifax this week.
I wanted a UK bank account plus an account in Spain - I had heard how easy it was to transfer from UK bank to Spain thru Halifax.
Yes , it is easy, BUT, the exchange rate used was quoted on the day at 1.142 euros to Sterling.........market rates were 1.214 at the time.
To my simple mind this equates to a charge in excess of 6%!!!

We are supposed to have a Single European Market within the EU. Looks like the European Commission need to act on this, I'm sure they said they would some years ago. Contact your MEP.

Robert

chriskross

RobertinHerts wrote: »

We are supposed to have a Single European Market within the EU. Looks like the European Commission need to act on this, I'm sure they said they would some years ago. Contact your MEP.

Robert

But the UK is not in the eurozone, so they will justify the charges. Even within the eurozone the banks weren't happy about losing the fees for currency transfers, and the law (and I'm no expert, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong) simply says that they can't discriminate between domestic charges and intra-eurozone charges.

Marksfish

virgo17 wrote: »

I'd be interested to know if you come accross any other banks or institutions that will do it at a better cost.

I have been following this thread since day 1, but as this is my first post, it may come across as advertising. It isn't.

When we bought our property in Spain, we transferred our money to our Spanish bank account using Xe.com. At the time, only banks in the U.S. or Canada benefited from EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) and no charges. I looked at my account this week and saw that this has now changed. I looked to send £1000.00 to my Spanish account and was going to get 1210€ with no fee. I emailed the company to make sure EFT was now available in the UK and it was confirmed to me. It may not be instant like a debit card, it can take up to 5 days to reach your account, but hey, it looks like the way for me to go.

Whilst also checking the prepaid Mastercards, I have the Escape card. That charges £2 per ATM withdrawal and a maximum of £150 per day for standard cards. Won't be using that then!!

Mark

greyteam1959

Mark
The 64 000 euro question is of course what was the exchange rate the you were given compared to the wholesale rate on that day ???
Did you get charged to RECEIVE the money by your Spanish bank ???

greyteam1959

Mmmmmmm
Just looked at the site Markfish was talking about.....XE.com
Very interesting cos the exchange rate looks to me to be very close to or on the wholesale rate.
The only downside to using a company like this is you have to have a bank account in the country that you are sending money to.

Have to investigate further !!!!
Thanks for the info Mark.

This link may be useful reading it answers most of questions regarding cost / charges etc.
http://www.xe.com/fx/help/faq3-8.htm

avqs43

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

It does not accept "hotmail" addresses

I've just signed the petition and it appears to have accepted my Hotmail addy.