Sticking with Natwest?

beautiful_ravens

Never had any problems with Natwest. They are the least intrusive bank Ive known, I like their card protection thing where they freeze your account if theres something they think is suspicious, I never had phonecalls from them or any hassle when I was way into my overdraft [but then, they were making 30 quid a month out of it] and I really like the monthly interest [rather than quarterly or whatever] on the accounts.
So Im staying with them BUT I am looking at opening an account at another bank, as I have three at Natwest and no others, which in light of all this, does seem a bit silly. I needed an account to use just for my little business anyway, so now is the time!

glennc1981

Despite the issues of the last few days, the thing you need to realise is that this could happen to any bank. Unfortunately it's happened to NatWest and other parts of the RBS Group.

Despite there being bits that NatWest need to teach to some of their staff (especially the whole purple/blue card debacle) I'm happy with them, so I'll be sticking to them. I just hope I'm offered some kind of credit sometime though.

fozmcfc

EDIT....not sure if you can now, but a poll with this thread would have prehaps giving us a bit more insight in peoples thinking, rather than having to read every post.

There is no need to change banks it could happen to any bank.

Natwest have opened branches earlier, later and even on days when banks are normally closed.

There has been lots of info online with regular updates.

When Blackberry had major I.T. issues, they handled it very poorly, despite I.T being a huge part of their business.

RBS group have performed much better.

You can bet no other bank will be whooping for joy at their misfortune, because they will only know too well it could easily happen to them.

GooliesOfFire

I've never been with Natwest, never will :P I'm not with any bank, I'm with two largest building societies in the UK. As long as they remain building societies I'll stay with them

But more on topic. It could have happened to any bank/building society and will probably happen to another bank in the future. I wouldn't make any decision driven by emotions.

stclair

Ive never had a days trouble with Natwest.

Except for when I first started working for the bank they declined by current account application as I didn't meet there lending criteria lol

nilrem_2

Been with Natwest for over 40 years, never had any problems with them except their interest rates on savings accounts are never very good. I have no plans to stop using them.

IMHO they are no worse or better than any other bank.

I moved a lot of money from my esaver account to Northern rock simply because the reduced the interest rate and NR offered much more.

richardruff

cpj1987 wrote: »

Most definitely not!

You'll be fine then, thanks to the FSCS (give it a Google if you haven't heard of it before)

Either way, the majority of the bank is owned by the government anyway! :mad:

waynedance

A computer goes down and all panic, S**t happens deal with it, it's life.

Seen on the news today that a person had to miss two call outs to a job as he had no fuel and no money for his misses or kid/s. I am not rich but do people really sail so close to the wind.

Come have ago at me.........

jen245

I have been relatively unaffected by all of this, probably because i have money in my account. Ive still been able to use my cards, and draw out cash, and my balances have still been updating. The problem ive had is transferring money between accounts, but that seems to have been sorted now.
I have no plans to leave Natwest. Ive never had any problems with them, and they have been good to me re credit facilities. As already pointed out, it could happen to any bank, and i think its happened to most of them at one point. It is always a good idea though, to have an account with another bank, even a savings account with a cashcard with £50 in it just for emergencies. Im really surprised at the amount of people who dont have anything put aside at all, and basically run their account down to zero before they get paid again.

Vampgirl

I've had my current account with Natwest for about 15 years and over that time have found them to be reliable, helpful and don't constantly call me to try to sell me things I don't need - pretty much all I require from a bank. Yes I'd prefer if their foreign card fees were lower, yes I'd prefer better interest rates, but for an ordinary current account they seem to do it well enough. When I got married we opened our joint account with them, and when we had to set up a bank account for my mother in law we chose Natwest because I've used their 3rd party mandate system before. I've never had any problems at all with any of the accounts I've held/operated with them.

Having said all that, we are currently in the process of moving our joint account to First Direct (but this was started well before their current problems - which seem to have not affected me at all) and the decision was not due to any shortcoming of Natwest...simply a recognition that it may be a good idea to spread ourselves around a bit. I know that many people switch bank accounts frequently to ensure that they get the best offer, but I also think that there is also value to stability - particularly if you are planning on applying for any major credit or mortgage in the future. Which is why hubby is keeping his main account with Lloyds (20+ years), I'm sticking with Natwest and only our joint account is changing.