Nationwide Reducing Rate

Joe_Bloggs

Bowlhead99 mentioned in an informative breakdown of Nationwide's business activity:-

Nationwide as a building society is household-focussed and has not been active in that area. In fact it had a net reduction of lending to SMEs by £3.6billion from the start of the qualifying period April 2013 through to the end of 2015. As such, its additional borrowing allowances were £nil, so it has no net drawings under the FLS extensions. And even if it did have an allowance under the scheme extension it would be tapering down from now rather than increasing from now, because FLS funding is being taken away rather than added.

What tempts a mutual based building society/bank to even have £3.6billion plus in SME investments ? The economy is not just about housing issues.

Nationwide is a progressive organization. Perhaps they can host a P2P investment platform with an ISA umbrella.
J_B.

Yorkshire_Pud

I just looked up the FCA guidelines on rate changes and for ISA/Savings accounts your bank/BS doesn't have to inform an account holder of a 'material change' in interest if the account has less than £500 in it.

Also there's no exact stipulation of the period of notice that should be given, only that it is 'reasonable'.

Maybe Nationwide say 30 days but can they be held to it?

I got my letter dated 16April on 6May and cleared out almost all my funds on my Flexclusive ISA within 4 days and its not June the 1st yet.

My Instant ISA Saver only has £1 in it. That explains why I haven't had a letter its under £500.

Still a huge reduction from 1.6% to 1.2% considering one year ago they nudged the rate up from 1.5% to make their Flexclusive ISA a table topper and sadly typical of their recent strategies, viz the Loyalty Saver that went from 1.7% to 1.5% to 1.2% within a period of months after hyping it up getting the funds in then dropping the rate.

Nationwide are not the organisation they once were.

I did enjoy going in to my local Nationwide branch yesterday to have my passbook updated........£1, thank you, have a good day.

Stompa

Still no letter for me.

colsten

Yorkshire_Pud wrote: »

Nationwide are not the organisation they once were.

I am not defending them but the world isn't what it once was. The only countries with high interest rates are now the ones with run-away inflation, way above their savings interest rate, and all sorts of economic and other troubles.

Along with most western economies, we get pretty rubbish savings rates and have very low inflation, and a relatively small risk of serious social unrest (for now, anyway). Given that choice, I settle for the low savings interest rates any time.

jimjames

Yorkshire_Pud wrote: »

Nationwide are not the organisation they once were.

I disagree. They lend me money at 2.24% and pay me 5% on the savings I have with them. Just because they don't pay massive interest on huge balances doesn't mean they're not looking after their members. When 70% of people have £2000 or less savings and the average ISA balance is £7000 or so then they seem to be looking after the majority fairly well.

Yorkshire_Pud

'Proud to be different' Nationwide used to boast about their fee free card use abroad until they withdrew that unless one takes out a FlexPlus account. That's when in my subjective opinion the they became more like an everyday bank.

When they brought out a new savings account you could bank on it staying the same interest rate for a good period which is why I was surprised when the Loyalty Saver account rates dropped so fast so much.

I understand all the rational arguments but I'm just reacting emotively because I rely on the interest to buy stuff.

colsten

Yorkshire_Pud wrote: »

'Proud to be different' Nationwide used to boast about their fee free card use abroad until they withdrew that unless one takes out a FlexPlus account. That's when in my subjective opinion the they became more like an everyday bank.

When they brought out a new savings account you could bank on it staying the same interest rate for a good period which is why I was surprised when the Loyalty Saver account rates dropped so fast so much.

I understand all the rational arguments but I'm just reacting emotively because I rely on the interest to buy stuff.

If Banking / Building-Society-ing is/would be about emotions rather than about "rational arguments", or about plain profit/loss numbers, we could all kiss our future good bye as our entire economy would descend into a disastrous nightmare on an incredible scale.

There is no magic to financials. There is just simple, plain reality. And to our good fortune, there's a heck of a lot of regulation around it so we can't easily get plunged into financial abyss .

If we were to have higher interest rates at this point in time, we'd also have to have much higher inflation and our money would therefore automatically be worth a lot less. The overall impact of higher interest rates on the economy would have a pretty devastating effect on society at large. Not just in the UK but worldwide.

Bottom line is that if you want "to buy stuff", you have to have the money to do so. If you think you should get more interest on your money to "buy stuff", you should consider that the price of "stuff" would almost certainly rise in line with the increase of your interest rate.

Castle

My letter of 26th April has just arrived today, (11th May), informing me of a change of the interest rate on 1st June to my Flexclusive ISA Issue 8. So formal complaint sent as 30 day notice is required.

Nationwide have form for this, as it's the third time it has happened over the last two years.

Yorkshire_Pud

Castle wrote: »

My letter of 26th April has just arrived today, (11th May), informing me of a change of the interest rate on 1st June to my Flexclusive ISA Issue 8. So formal complaint sent as 30 day notice is required.

Nationwide have form for this, as it's the third time it has happened over the last two years.

If you read their Savings general Terms and Conditions | Nationwide, Interest 28 and 29, you will see that they only have to give thirty days notice in writing if the reason for a rate change falls outside a fairly inclusive list of reasons. As the reasons for the rate reduction are within the list of reasons it is sufficient for them to display the notifications in branch, in the newspaper and /or on their website which they have in the latter case albeit without saying what the new interest rates are on 1st June!

So I doubt you will get far with a complaint?

Castle

Yorkshire_Pud wrote: »

If you read their Savings general Terms and Conditions | Nationwide, Interest 28 and 29, you will see that they only have to give thirty days notice in writing if the reason for a rate change falls outside a fairly inclusive list of reasons. As the reasons for the rate reduction are within the list of reasons it is sufficient for them to display the notifications in branch, in the newspaper and /or on their website which they have in the latter case albeit without saying what the new interest rates are on 1st June!

So I doubt you will get far with a complaint?

If that was true, why would they bother to write!