NW's bizarre Triple Access A/c interest

nottsphil

In this example Nationwide have attempted to explain the interest you would get if you exceed 3 withdrawals in a year. Well, it would surely be reduced to either 9p or 10p for the whole year, so how on Earth has somebody calculated it as £1.71??  Am I missing something? Well actually I am, I've opened the account and now I'm missing any interest at all, even the 0.01%!

JGB1955

Until the 4th withdrawal is made you would be getting the 0.5%. The 0.01% would only kick in in Month 4.

DairyQueen

You are missing something.

The interest rate reduction from 0.5% to 0.01% begins at the point that the 4th withdrawal is made. In the example given, that point is only reached at the beginning of month 4. Until that point the interest is accrued at an APR (variable) of 0.5% and then drops to 0.01% only for the remainder of the year.

I opened an account this week and deposited cash. My account displays:
"Interest rate: 0.50% gross p.a./AER (variable*)".

You may need to add funds to the account before the interest rate displays. This is a variable rate account and it's possible the interest rate could change before funds are added.

nottsphil

Ah, I presumed it was per annum. Wasn't expecting a reply within minutes this time of night, let alone  two correct ones - I will now sleep more easily!
Still unsure whether to fund it substantially in the morning though, even if weekend interest is paid on  Saturday deposits. 

Notnewnotold

I spotted this one when it first came out, took me a few minutes to figure out what they were doing.

It's still pennies though, very depressing out there for savers, and that's before we get to negative base rates dragging savings accounts down to zero...

nottsphil

DairyQueen said:

You may need to add funds to the account before the interest rate displays. 

I funded it with a pound and you are quite right. This is so annoying though, not so much because a day's (or maybe 3) interest has been lost, but because of the wasted time in having to research it. It's completely pointless and misleading to quote the rate as 0%, and the Nationwide employee responsibile needs to be redeployed to tasks more within her/his grasp.