Natwest Banking Broken

[Deleted User]

The £200 that vanished out of my Thinkmoney account is still missing and nowhere to be seen. Still no ETA on a solution.

callum9999

Suplex_Backbreaker wrote: »

Very good advice.

There's no such thing as having 'money in the bank' - what you have when you give your money to the bank is bank credit and should there be problems with the bank (either technical as in this latest example with RBS/NW or financial solvency as in Northern Rock/Icelandic banks 2008) you may find yourself unable to access the credit or swap it for cash at an ATM or branch.

Also it was very handy for me when I lost my wallet and cards recently.

Obviously there are risks associated with keeping a stash of emergency cash at home but by exercising reasonable caution, common sense and personal responsibility they can be mitigated. Don't forget that there are also counterparty risks with swapping your cash for bank credit as we have yet again seen .. and it's not like you get a decent rate of interest to compensate you these days.

No it's stupid advice. The only way you can lose money from your bank account is if your bank, and then the entire UK, went bankrupt. (Unless you have a particularly large pot of savings - in which case even negligible interest rates would still be worth a decent amount)

If the entire UK went bankrupt, the money under your bed will become worthless anyway. And in the meantime it's at risk of being burgled.

As to interest rates, Flexdirect from Nationwide offers 5%. Halifax pay £5 monthly. Lloyds pay up to 3%. With a pot of roughly £5k, I earn almost £30 a month in interest. Considering the bank rate is only 0.5% I think that is extraordinarily good.... Then of course there is the roughly 2% cashback I earn on the majority of that money when I spend it via Credit cards. FAR more valuable than keeping it as a pile of cash at home!

innovate

callum9999 wrote: »

With a pot of roughly £5k, I earn almost £30 a month in interest. Considering the bank rate is only 0.5% I think that is extraordinarily good....!

It would be if it was true.

With £5K, you can make a max of round about £15 a month right now, if you include a Halifax Reward which doesn't really count as interest.

I do agree, though, why let your money linger in Natwest/RBS/Ulster when you can earn interest elsewhere.

callum9999

innovate wrote: »

It would be if it was true.

With £5K, you can make a max of round about £15 a month right now, if you include a Halifax Reward which doesn't really count as interest.

I do agree, though, why let your money linger in Natwest/RBS/Ulster when you can earn interest elsewhere.

I assume you're just being an annoying pedant?

£0 in Halifax - £6.25 reward (non-taxpayer)
£2.5k in Nationwide Flex Direct - about £10.50
£2.5k - 3.5k in Lloyds Vantage - about £8

So £24.75 a month. I'm incredibly sorry I didn't precisely do the calculations for an amount of money I described as a "rough" amount, and an amount of interest I described as "almost". I can see now how that completely changes the argument...

sarahg1969

We've had a payment of over £600 into our RBS account marked 'wages'. Bank say they can't see where its from but we know its not ours. So it's sitting in there till they find out who it belongs to. Madness.

pineapple

callum9999 wrote: »

No it's stupid advice. The only way you can lose money from your bank account is if your bank, and then the entire UK, went bankrupt. (Unless you have a particularly large pot of savings - in which case even negligible interest rates would still be worth a decent amount)

If the entire UK went bankrupt, the money under your bed will become worthless anyway. And in the meantime it's at risk of being burgled.

Thankfully most glitches are sorted eventually. But in the meantime (as we have seen) it can cause not just inconvenience but major problems for those affected. Plus we are increasingly vulnerable to cyber attack - both nationally and on an individual company basis. As for bankruptcy well people are kidding themselves if they think this country is healthy financially or is insulated from global problems. Plus at the merest hint of problems, capital controls etc there will be a major run on the banks. Does anyone fancy standing for hours in an angry queue?
I might add that under such circumstances you can kiss your deposit guarantee goodbye till it is sorted.
In fact there is a world of possibilities aside from out and out national bankruptcy. Just this latest fiasco has shown the prudence of having a cash float.
So you are wrong and backbreaker makes some good points. It does make sense to have some cash stored in a safe place at home. Unless of course one lives in an area often featured in Crimewatch ....

Gordon_Hose

I moved to Lloyds after the last fiasco. Glad I did now.

innovate

callum9999 wrote: »

I assume you're just being an annoying pedant?

£0 in Halifax - £6.25 reward (non-taxpayer)
£2.5k in Nationwide Flex Direct - about £10.50
£2.5k - 3.5k in Lloyds Vantage - about £8

So £24.75 a month. I'm incredibly sorry I didn't precisely do the calculations for an amount of money I described as a "rough" amount, and an amount of interest I described as "almost". I can see now how that completely changes the argument...

I'd rather be an annoying pedant than someone who vastly exaggerates. As it happens, I do have all these interest paying current accounts, as well as a couple of Halifax Rewards, so I am well informed about how much you can make from them.

As I said earlier, Halifax Reward doesn't count as interest but you are right, a non-tax payer can make £6.25 a month from it.

You originally said you had roughly £5K, so I will ignore that you now say it might be £5.5 to £6K. You also never mentioned that you are a non-tax payer, which obviously makes a difference.

So, for £5K, the best interest you can currently get a month, before tax, is
- approx £10.60 for £2.5k in a FlexDirect
- approx £4.20 for the other £2.5K if held in Lloyds, TSB, BOS, or £8.50 if held in YB/CB but I didn't see you mention them.

That makes £14.80, or £19.10 if you use YB/CB, in interest before tax. Not even 75% of the £30 you claim. Even if you add your Halifax money, you just about creep over £20 before tax unless you have half of your money in YB/CB (and skim off the interest for compounding into something like a 6% Regular Saver).

For anyone who pays tax, the figures are of course lower, and by default, all the banks pay with BR tax deducted. For a BR tax payer, this means max per month approx
- £8.48 from FlexDirect
- £3.36 from Lloyds etc, or £6.80 from CB/YB

Even if you then add the Halifax fiver, you will just about scrape £20 a month at best. Which is, of course, still about £20 more than you would get in a Natwest current account but it isn't almost £30 in my book.

The other point to note is that you cannot extrapolate the above numbers. E.g. if you had £10k, you could not normally make twice as much as you can make from £5k since things like the FlexDirect, YB/CB and Halifax Rewards have limits per person, and these limits are now being enforced.

Sinhanada

I have been called back today by Natwest - hugely apologetic and have awarded me £40 compensation.

I do feel sorry for RBS right now as they are facing huge problems, but should they remain mine? I will be switching, but after Christmas and New Years!

Wilkins

Sinhanada wrote: »

I have been called back today by Natwest - hugely apologetic and have awarded me £40 compensation.

I do feel sorry for RBS right now as they are facing huge problems, but should they remain mine? I will be switching, but after Christmas and New Years!

And another big fine today, but the only high street bank whose sp is holding up. Not sure why.