MSE News: Cheshire savers to become Nationwide customers this weekend

MRMX9

colsten wrote: »

Interest rates, bonuses and related timescales are hardly smallprint, and are always prominently listed with all accounts by all providers. Nationwide and Cheshire are no exception. People not reading the information available only have got themselves to blame, but it seems to be hip in certain circles to try and lay the blame for their own failures onto someone else. Why don't people who claim to be grown-ups assume responsibility for themselves.

Sorry – but after years of bailouts, PPI refunds and now Wonga write offs its a bit rich lecturing savers about taking responsibility.

As for transparency its very hard to find interest rates for closed issue accounts on the Nationwide site.

When you do encounter it its quite confusing. For the Direct cash isa issue 4 (the one the Mail article refers to) - it says the AER is 0.5%, the AER including bonus is 0.8% and the Gross rate is 2.3% - and there is a fixed bonus payable but it doesn't say what that is?

The presentation is confusing to say the least.

http://www.nationwide.co.uk/support/support-articles/rates-fees-charges/savings-rates

planteria

fwiw i am surprised Nationwide have messed around for so long. they need to concentrate on their own brand, and actually make it mean something...at the moment they are, overall, poor value. and certainly not "on your side"

colsten

MRMX9 wrote: »

Sorry – but after years of bailouts, PPI refunds and now Wonga write offs its a bit rich lecturing savers about taking responsibility.

As for transparency its very hard to find interest rates for closed issue accounts on the Nationwide site.

When you do encounter it its quite confusing. For the Direct cash isa issue 4 (the one the Mail article refers to) - it says the AER is 0.5%, the AER including bonus is 0.8% and the Gross rate is 2.3% - and there is a fixed bonus payable but it doesn't say what that is?

The presentation is confusing to say the least.

http://www.nationwide.co.uk/support/support-articles/rates-fees-charges/savings-rates

We aren't talking about bailouts, PPI and Wonga, we are just talking about simple cash ISAs. I am amazed you would try and boil the financial services ocean just because we are looking for the best cash ISA rate for a given situation.

I absolutely agree it is confusing how AER can be 0.5%, AER incl bonus 0.95%, and Gross pa. 2.3% - - - but for goodness sake, you then ask Nationwide for an urgent explanation, rather than just put your head into the sand and assume you get 2.3%, and 2.3% forever.May be somebody in Nationwide just made a mistake? Why do so many people expect perfection from an ISA provider when they themselves are seemingly lacking the ability to even attempt to clarify things they do not understand? Funny some of them can run to the tabloid press but not to their nearest Nationwide branch. Or just pick up the phone to Nationwide.

On the Nationwide site, it also says that after November 30 2014, the Direct Cash ISA4 gets transferred to a Direct Cash ISA 1, which, as it is clearly stated, pays 0.5% AER. Which is, of course, a horrible rate and anyone who cares about how much interest they get would by now have a plan to move their money elsewhere, or have it moved already. I won't hazard a guess whose fault it would be if the money didn't get moved, but I am sure somebody will soon post the answer. Probably together with calls for a single ISA interest rate that must be offered by all ISA providers (akin to the calls for a single electricity and gas tariff) so that everybody could get mediocre cash ISA interest rates.

Uplink

Sorry to barge in a month later, but I just realised that Nationwide extended the bonus period by a month. And I already initiated a transfer out to a different provider.

Losing the extra month of interest isn't a big deal for me, as I was ready to lose the bonus at the end of October anyway, and already had plans to transfer out, but reading the "bamboozled" article linked above I went through what Nationwide sent me before the transfer from Cheshire.

I can confirm what the article says:

- The front page features the 2.3% p.a. interest rate soon after the salutation.
- The 30 November bonus expiry date is mentioned on the back of the page after a long bold text paragraph about registering for online banking. Unlike other sections of the letter, the part about the interest rate does not have a section headline of its own, nor does it have any space before it to separate it from the online banking registration text. I definitely skipped over it even today, since I'm also an existing Nationwide customer and I already have all the online stuff they provide.

Somebody needs to learn the BLUF writing style. That is: Bottom Line Up Front. Or at least how to not mess up paragraph separation.

If this bonus expiry date is mentioned in previous letters, then I didn't pay much attention to it since it was close to what I was expecting to be the Cheshire bonus expiry date, and it didn't look like it was affecting my plans to transfer out. By the time I received the "get ready to transfer" letter I was already bored with the information to check it again.