Nationwide slow customer service

masonic

epm-84 said:

masonic said:

epm-84 said:

masonic said:

epm-84 said:

@masonic - I don't think any of your posts in this thread can be described as helpful.

If you don't find my posts helpful, you are welcome to stop reading them. I'll take no offence.

epm-84 said:

You started by strongly disagreeing with a suggestion I made about how Nationwide may be processing ISA requests and have subsequently disagreed with something I've said in each post since.

The suggestion was that Nationwide was deliberately and systematically slowing down the processing of high value ISA transfers in order to stem the tide of money flowing out of the organisation. It's a pretty extraordinary claim to make and one that was bound to invite some challenge, if not by me then by someone else.

This is a discussion forum, so you should expect that when someone disagrees with you they will enter into a discussion with you. Yes, I disagreed with your views and I gave reasons for my disagreement. You disbelieved my reasoning and asked me some follow up questions. I responded to those questions and clarified my reasoning. In subsequent posts, all I was doing was defending my arguments and reasoning from your attacks, and pointing out where you have mischaracterised what I wrote.

Here we have another example:

epm-84 said:

You even tried to defend Nationwide's 0.25% rate as not being one of the worst on the market, until I questioned whether any of the even lower rates had Nationwide's withdrawal restrictions.

I have not expressed a view about whether or not Nationwide's 0.25% is one of the worst on the market. What I stated was "I can assure you that I do understand your point and my maths is good enough to know that even the 0.25% offered for the triple access ISA is more than 0.07%."

This makes no reference to any other savings account on the market, but I did not drop "even" into that sentence for no reason. I'd consider 0.25% to be a very poor rate, even if it were an easy access account. To my knowledge there are no "worst buy" tables for savings accounts, so I can't say more than that.

The 0.07% is the short term LIBOR rate I introduced in an earlier post. I made this clear a couple of paragraphs later when I wrote: "They could lend it on the short term money markets, but 1 week LIBOR is currently at 0.07% so they'll be making a loss if they try to hang on to the money for an extra week or two vs. closing down the account and releasing themselves from the interest burden ASAP."

I'm sure nobody else is finding this discussion particularly helpful, so if you aren't either there is no point in continuing it beyond this point. I'm happy to draw a line under it if you are.

It was a suggestion based on what people had posted about the transfer times for their ISA.  Some with high credit amounts who were switching to providers using electronic transfers were finding their transfers were only just being done within 15 days or were taking slightly longer, yet others with low balances were saying their transfers went through in an acceptable time frame.  As a few reports is not enough to make a claim based on a representative sample I made it clear that what I posted was a suggestion, not a fact. 

epm-84 said:

The point about your Maths was when you ignored what I said about £90,000 going out of the building society being £90,000 going out of the building society whether it's the balance from one account or the combined balance of 9 separate accounts. You went off on a tangent about the balance being irrelevant to the amount of time needed to work on the transfer.  I knew that and tried to explain again, you claimed you did understand but then effectively wrote the same response again using different words.  As I did A Levels Maths I thought maybe I'm not explaining it in a way which you were able to understand if haven't studied Maths to an advanced level.  You then went off on a further tangent by going on about LIBORs as proof your Maths is good enough for you to explain your argument.

You chose to insult my understanding of maths because you misunderstood, either genuinely or deliberately, the point I was making. 

epm-84 said:

What seems very clear (and a number of financial journalists have picked up on) is that Nationwide did not expect so many people to transfer their ISAs out so quickly after they dropped the interest rate and that they don't have enough staff to cope with all the requests.  Perhaps they thought their members would be more loyal then they actually are or that more people would 'wait and see' rather than switching immediately.  The LIBOR may be relevant in response to whether or not Nationwide might be prioritising transfer requests based on their balances.  However, the number of transfer requests they have received relates to the interest rate Nationwide are offering in relation to other banks and building societies.  As I pointed out the difference in interest rate between Nationwide's single access 'loyalty' ISA and Virgin Money's double take ISA was minimal, now it's significant - Nationwide aren't going to get loads of transfer requests because another provider is offering 0.05% more interest for a similar product (especially when the rates on both accounts are variable) but if they are offering 0.75% more interest for a similar product they will.  

This was the example I gave:

"transferring 9 accounts with £10,000 each and delaying 1 account with £90,000 means 90% of transfers haven't been delayed, the other way around it would be 10% but with £90,000 still being transferred out of Nationwide."

Nice easy Maths £90k = 9(£10k) and 90%>10%

This was what you said after I tried to explain it a second time, after you didn't get it the first time:

"I didn't misunderstand your point. I'm stating that if 10 ISAs are to be transferred it is the statistics will be the same whether the £90k ISA is transferred first, last or in any other position. They'll have a 90% success rate upon transferring any 9 of those 10 ISAs. "

From that statement it is clear you originally either didn't read all of what I said or you didn't understand it.  To claim you understood it implies you don't understand the difference between £90k and £170k!  That's why I questioned your Maths, nothing to do with the LIBOR that you started going on about after.

I have not at any time disputed that transferring 9 x £10k ISAs while delaying 1 x £90k ISA would lead to a 90% success rate, or that it would equate to £90k having been transferred. I have understood from the outset that was the point you were trying to make. I have, however, pointed out that it would be not be in Nationwide's interests to do something like that - and to explain the rationale behind that I've needed to introduce things you seemingly find incomprehensible, such as relative interest rates and comparing scenarios involving different total outflows of cash. Perhaps it was a failing on my part not to congratulate you for correctly multiplying £10k by 9 and dividing 9 by 10 before I outlined why those sums did not support your suggestion that Nationwide were deliberately and systematically slowing down the processing of high value ISA transfers in order to stem the tide of money flowing out of the organisation.

To evaluate the likelihood of that suggestion, it is necessary to consider the benefit of transferring £170k vs £90k in your example, that it does not take any more work to transfer the larger ISA, and the prevailing ISA rate vs LIBOR which is what makes it better for Nationwide to get rid of the larger sum of cash as a priority. Once again, if it is being suggested that Nationwide processed transfers not in the order received - which would be an extraordinary thing to suggest - for the reasons I've outlined, it would be in their best interests to prioritise the high value ones over the low value ones, so it is better for them to transfer £170k in 9 transfers with a success rate of 90% than transfer £90k in 9 transfers with a success rate of 90%.

It's very likely they just processed transfers in the order received as would be expected, and the differences in transfer time are the result of different transfer processes and differing delays/failures at various stages of the process.

Breadcake

TL;DR
When resource constrained and wanting to maintain high successful transfer rates:
Process high value accounts first for high cash flow
Process low value accounts first for low cash flow

masonic

Today's news will give at least some insight into Nationwide's motivation to cut rates so deeply. 40% seems to be the magic number for profit warning announcements at the moment. Looks like it has lost £5.8bn in residential mortgage lending and gained only £2bn in BTL lending, so overall that's £3.8bn less lent out. With a lot of Covid-related headwinds to come it looks like Nationwide will be facing some tough times. I'll make no comment on the CEO's quote about their plan to "continue to provide competitive products and excellent service for our members".

gt94sss2

The Guardian suggests that Nationwide might be cutting savings rates further.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/29/nationwide-building-society-profits-halve-amid-pandemic

epm-84

gt94sss2 said:

The Guardian suggests that Nationwide might be cutting savings rates further.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/29/nationwide-building-society-profits-halve-amid-pandemic

I notice they are claiming they have 10% of the market share for current accounts.  Given they used to do a £100 refer a friend bonus and offered 5% interest on balances of up to £2500 for the first year, is getting a 10% market share a good thing or not considering how much it has costed?

What's also worth remembering is while they've cut most interest rates, credit card interest rates have remained constant apart from the requirement to offer a payment holiday which Nationwide actually decided translates as reducing the minimum monthly payment to £1 opposed to a literal payment holiday.

epm-84

masonic said:

epm-84 said:

masonic said:

epm-84 said:

masonic said:

epm-84 said:

@masonic - I don't think any of your posts in this thread can be described as helpful.

If you don't find my posts helpful, you are welcome to stop reading them. I'll take no offence.

epm-84 said:

You started by strongly disagreeing with a suggestion I made about how Nationwide may be processing ISA requests and have subsequently disagreed with something I've said in each post since.

The suggestion was that Nationwide was deliberately and systematically slowing down the processing of high value ISA transfers in order to stem the tide of money flowing out of the organisation. It's a pretty extraordinary claim to make and one that was bound to invite some challenge, if not by me then by someone else.

This is a discussion forum, so you should expect that when someone disagrees with you they will enter into a discussion with you. Yes, I disagreed with your views and I gave reasons for my disagreement. You disbelieved my reasoning and asked me some follow up questions. I responded to those questions and clarified my reasoning. In subsequent posts, all I was doing was defending my arguments and reasoning from your attacks, and pointing out where you have mischaracterised what I wrote.

Here we have another example:

epm-84 said:

You even tried to defend Nationwide's 0.25% rate as not being one of the worst on the market, until I questioned whether any of the even lower rates had Nationwide's withdrawal restrictions.

I have not expressed a view about whether or not Nationwide's 0.25% is one of the worst on the market. What I stated was "I can assure you that I do understand your point and my maths is good enough to know that even the 0.25% offered for the triple access ISA is more than 0.07%."

This makes no reference to any other savings account on the market, but I did not drop "even" into that sentence for no reason. I'd consider 0.25% to be a very poor rate, even if it were an easy access account. To my knowledge there are no "worst buy" tables for savings accounts, so I can't say more than that.

The 0.07% is the short term LIBOR rate I introduced in an earlier post. I made this clear a couple of paragraphs later when I wrote: "They could lend it on the short term money markets, but 1 week LIBOR is currently at 0.07% so they'll be making a loss if they try to hang on to the money for an extra week or two vs. closing down the account and releasing themselves from the interest burden ASAP."

I'm sure nobody else is finding this discussion particularly helpful, so if you aren't either there is no point in continuing it beyond this point. I'm happy to draw a line under it if you are.

It was a suggestion based on what people had posted about the transfer times for their ISA.  Some with high credit amounts who were switching to providers using electronic transfers were finding their transfers were only just being done within 15 days or were taking slightly longer, yet others with low balances were saying their transfers went through in an acceptable time frame.  As a few reports is not enough to make a claim based on a representative sample I made it clear that what I posted was a suggestion, not a fact. 

epm-84 said:

The point about your Maths was when you ignored what I said about £90,000 going out of the building society being £90,000 going out of the building society whether it's the balance from one account or the combined balance of 9 separate accounts. You went off on a tangent about the balance being irrelevant to the amount of time needed to work on the transfer.  I knew that and tried to explain again, you claimed you did understand but then effectively wrote the same response again using different words.  As I did A Levels Maths I thought maybe I'm not explaining it in a way which you were able to understand if haven't studied Maths to an advanced level.  You then went off on a further tangent by going on about LIBORs as proof your Maths is good enough for you to explain your argument.

You chose to insult my understanding of maths because you misunderstood, either genuinely or deliberately, the point I was making. 

epm-84 said:

What seems very clear (and a number of financial journalists have picked up on) is that Nationwide did not expect so many people to transfer their ISAs out so quickly after they dropped the interest rate and that they don't have enough staff to cope with all the requests.  Perhaps they thought their members would be more loyal then they actually are or that more people would 'wait and see' rather than switching immediately.  The LIBOR may be relevant in response to whether or not Nationwide might be prioritising transfer requests based on their balances.  However, the number of transfer requests they have received relates to the interest rate Nationwide are offering in relation to other banks and building societies.  As I pointed out the difference in interest rate between Nationwide's single access 'loyalty' ISA and Virgin Money's double take ISA was minimal, now it's significant - Nationwide aren't going to get loads of transfer requests because another provider is offering 0.05% more interest for a similar product (especially when the rates on both accounts are variable) but if they are offering 0.75% more interest for a similar product they will.  

This was the example I gave:

"transferring 9 accounts with £10,000 each and delaying 1 account with £90,000 means 90% of transfers haven't been delayed, the other way around it would be 10% but with £90,000 still being transferred out of Nationwide."

Nice easy Maths £90k = 9(£10k) and 90%>10%

This was what you said after I tried to explain it a second time, after you didn't get it the first time:

"I didn't misunderstand your point. I'm stating that if 10 ISAs are to be transferred it is the statistics will be the same whether the £90k ISA is transferred first, last or in any other position. They'll have a 90% success rate upon transferring any 9 of those 10 ISAs. "

From that statement it is clear you originally either didn't read all of what I said or you didn't understand it.  To claim you understood it implies you don't understand the difference between £90k and £170k!  That's why I questioned your Maths, nothing to do with the LIBOR that you started going on about after.

I have not at any time disputed that transferring 9 x £10k ISAs while delaying 1 x £90k ISA would lead to a 90% success rate, or that it would equate to £90k having been transferred. 

From your previous posts it is 100% clear that either you didn't understand or that you dismissed my reasoning because you didn't agree with it.  You clearly talked about it being irrelevant which ISAs Nationwide transferred on time to hit a hypothetical 90% target, when I had suggested transferring the lowest value ones first might be easier due to how much money they had available immediately.  As you're saying you understood the Maths I'm pleased I offended your Maths skills as you should be more respectful of the opinions of others.

You also dismissed my simplified example because I mentioned a £90,000 balance in one ISA to keep things simple and you didn't think anyone should have £90,000 in a cash ISA.  If you watch Martin Lewis' video on furlough from yesterday you'll notice to simplify things he talks about someone working 40 hours a week earning £1000 a month.  Unless that's an apprentice (which complicates things and doesn't make it simple) that's impossible as it would breach the minimum wage.  Yet I don't see loads of comments complaining about his hypothetical example, so fortunately most people in here aren't as pedantic as you are.

uptdale

What's also worth remembering is while they've cut most interest rates, credit card interest rates have remained constant apart from the requirement to offer a payment holiday which Nationwide actually decided translates as reducing the minimum monthly payment to £1 opposed to a literal payment holiday.

Interesting that the CEO's announcement made no mention of their credit card business, which I suspect is doing well at the moment.  Meanwhile I have had a message from Shawbrook Bank to say that my ISA transfer request from Nationwide submitted on 30 April has been accepted by Nationwide and the transfer will be completed within 15 days from now....

masonic

epm-84 said:

From your previous posts it is 100% clear that either you didn't understand or that you dismissed my reasoning because you didn't agree with it.

You are correct that I disagreed with your reasoning and went to great lengths to explain why I disagreed.

epm-84 said:

You clearly talked about it being irrelevant which ISAs Nationwide transferred on time to hit a hypothetical 90% target, when I had suggested transferring the lowest value ones first might be easier due to how much money they had available immediately.

I pointed out that is is no more work to transfer a larger balance ISA, so the 90% target can be reached with the same amount of work regardless of which ISAs are transferred. I also pointed out that Nationwide was trying to get rid of money as fast as possible. If they were short on cash you'd have a point, but the opposite is true after having seen nearly £4bn flow in from mortgage accounts they've lost over the past year. If Nationwide is unable to meet their liabilities to savers in the way you suggest, then they'd be insolvent and it would be time for the regulator and FSCS to step in. If Nationwide was in this situation and the directors failed to notify the FCA, that would be unlawful and they could face criminal charges.

epm-84 said:

As you're saying you understood the Maths I'm pleased I offended your Maths skills as you should be more respectful of the opinions of others.

There's a big difference between rebutting an opinion and insulting a person. I did the former and you did the latter. Respect is earned.

epm-84 said:

You also dismissed my simplified example because I mentioned a £90,000 balance in one ISA to keep things simple and you didn't think anyone should have £90,000 in a cash ISA.

No I did not, I gave a reasoned explanation as to why I disagreed with your suggestion, and then added that it would be unwise to have £90k in a cash ISA. It is unwise to hold more than £85k in a single financial institution other than NS&I. It bears mentioning because it's a rather important point entirely separate from the discussion of whether Nationwide was deliberately and systematically slowing down the processing of high value ISA transfers in order to stem the tide of money flowing out of the organisation.

epm-84 said:

If you watch Martin Lewis' video on furlough from yesterday you'll notice to simplify things he talks about someone working 40 hours a week earning £1000 a month.  Unless that's an apprentice (which complicates things and doesn't make it simple) that's impossible as it would breach the minimum wage.  Yet I don't see loads of comments complaining about his hypothetical example, so fortunately most people in here aren't as pedantic as you are.

If you are suggesting I would point out that someone working 40 hours a week earning £1000 per month would breach the minimum wage then you are 100% correct (although as well as apprentices, 18 year olds could legally earn this amount). If that makes me pedantic so be it. You noticed it and brought it to my attention though.

I think I've been extremely patient with you during this protracted exchange and have put up with much more nonsense from you than anyone should. It ends here. Once again, I'm reminded that the ignore function is one of this forum's most useful features.

masonic

uptdale said:

What's also worth remembering is while they've cut most interest rates, credit card interest rates have remained constant apart from the requirement to offer a payment holiday which Nationwide actually decided translates as reducing the minimum monthly payment to £1 opposed to a literal payment holiday.

Interesting that the CEO's announcement made no mention of their credit card business, which I suspect is doing well at the moment.  Meanwhile I have had a message from Shawbrook Bank to say that my ISA transfer request from Nationwide submitted on 30 April has been accepted by Nationwide and the transfer will be completed within 15 days from now....

It certainly would be interesting to know how credit card lending has performed in the last 12 months during which time Nationwide has lost nearly £4bn in mortgage accounts. I suspect not well enough to counterbalance that.

If it's any consolation, my transfer out of Nationwide went quite quickly from the point my account was actually closed.

eskbanker

epm-84 said:

gt94sss2 said:

The Guardian suggests that Nationwide might be cutting savings rates further.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/29/nationwide-building-society-profits-halve-amid-pandemic

I notice they are claiming they have 10% of the market share for current accounts.  Given they used to do a £100 refer a friend bonus and offered 5% interest on balances of up to £2500 for the first year, is getting a 10% market share a good thing or not considering how much it has costed?

It'll all be part of a fully-costed plan though - as with their competitors, they know that customer acquisition and retention costs money, so if they felt the cost of promotional offers was excessive they could easily have switched them off or reduced them sooner than they did.

Nationwide's preliminary results make it clear that the increase in current accounts isn't massively significant in the context of their previous year figures:

Opened 759,000 new current accounts (2019: 794,000), meeting our long-term target of gaining a 10% market share of all accounts (2019: 9.8%) 

and their full annual reports outline their cross-selling strategy via which they expect to monetise the increased market share, so it would surprise me if their numbers were radically different from expectations.

In terms of the referral incentive, roughly 170,000 switched to them via CASS in 2019 (while about 66,000 switched away) and I'm sure that not all of those would have been taking advantage of that promotion, so it's a relatively small slice of new customers who'd have been receiving the £100.  I imagine that the exposure via the FlexDirect 5% was also not as significant as you might think, especially when many will use these accounts 'properly' rather than as fully-loaded pseudo savings accounts, so I wouldn't necessarily perceive their customer acquisition costs as excessive....