Maturing Monmouthshire Regular Saver

Daliah

veryintrigued said:

Am I really reading that people are opening accounts with cheques for proof or funding and then the same members have to prove (with more, cancelled, cheques) that the maturing fund destination accounts are theirs?

The more I deal with MBS the more I wince.

I have had a number of Regular Savers at Monmouthshire. They have only asked me for a deposit with a cheque on my first one, and never for maturing accounts. They still ask me to sign what they call the "Online Signatory Form" when I open a new account online. This adds a few days to the account opening. I just got confirmation this morning that my Existing Members RS is now up and running - definitely not needed a cheque for that. Though I believe I could have sent them a cheque if I had wanted to.


Getting maturing funds transferred electronically to my nominated account usually happens on the maturity date, except if the maturity date falls on a non-working day, in which case the money arrives on the next working day.

veryintrigued

kaMelo said:

To give a comparison Monmouthshire BS has assets of £1.3 Billion, Skipton BS has assets of £26.5 Billion and Nationwide £250 Billion.
Monmouth BS is just a small building society, it operates just like building societies used to do. Larger societies can dilute the cost of online platform development much wider. Monmouth, I assume, purchase the online platform from a third party as I've come across the same system, albeit branded accordingly, at other places too. All of them offer online access but with limited functionality although they all allow online withdrawals to a nominated account. As these are savings accounts I'm happy with that level of functionality.

Personally I don't mind the old fashioned way they do things, they still sent a passbook with the recent members regular saver application for example, even if it means some extra steps that I have to take. As long as they keep offering better rates rather than spend the money on increased admin costs or fancy websites.

Like many on here I've got lots of accounts with far more comparable BS than the ones you've mentioned here.

All of these have better processes than MBS.

Am sure MBS are reading this but the likes of Cambridge BS, Saffron Walden BS, Ecology BS and literally half a dozen more are less clunky.

I'd suggest they take a look at their peers and see where they can improve by adopting better processes which will cost their institution and its staff less time and money!

kaMelo

Like yourself I too am a member in many organisations both large and small with varying degrees of being better or worse than each other. The comparison was to show relative size although I admit it surprised me to see they were as high as 14th in the asset size list. A comparable size being Saffron at 16th with, I would agree, a more slick operation.

https://www.bsa.org.uk/BSA/files/4c/4c973a8a-cfb5-4901-af3e-c51669e943e0.pdf

Everyone can always improve their offerings and do so where possible, I just don't agree that some of the things being complained about are much of an issue. They could cut down the paperwork sent in the post for sure. Password reset could be moved online rather than needing a letter sent.  That's two I can think of off the top of my he. 
The need to prove ownership of an account for maturing regular savers seems unnecessary considering you will have already done so but can be circumvented, let it mature into an easy saver and then withdraw online to your already authorised nominated account.

There just seems to be a desire to be absolutely on the ball, not a moment to lose, done at the earliest opportunity and needing an instant response to everything, we saw that on the Skipton thread where someone complained that their payment didn't show up at 4:00AM on the 1st September. 

I don't completely disagree with your sentiment, I just think a little patience is helpful at times.

badger09

I too have been confounded by this year's Monmouthshire BS maturity process. I tried to use the online maturity link to convert to Easy Saver, but got error message (can't remember wording), so decided to leave it to the default - ie convert to Easy saver! 

However, despite the error message, I got 2 emails from MONBS - at exactly the same time: one said 'As per your request, the closing balance inclusive of interest will be ............... (BLANK). Now that you have instructed us to close your account, once your instruction has been processed, we will issue you with written confirmation to the address we hold on file'. But I didn't request closure! The 2nd email contained the same letter as Gers, except my maturity date was 5th September.

When I logged in late pm on 6th September, the account still showed as Regular Saver, but with a £0 balance. 

7th Sept - RS showed as Closed, with multiple self cancelling transactions, but at least with correct balance. I requested xfer of £3020 to linked account
8th Sept now shows as Easy Saver - £3020 not yet arrived 

Daliah

Whilst I didn't have any troubles with my recently matured MBS RS myself, I had other woes with MBS this week. I suspect they do a lot of the transactions manually, and some of their staff might have skills issues. I would recommend you call them and be firm in your request for a resolution. I would almost bet the phone is answered for everybody by Anne, who is a real person and just distributes enquiries to others who are called Allyson and Nayla, where Nayla is the one who knows her stuff and can resolve issues.

veryintrigued

Bumping this just incase, more thoughtful, forumites might want to use this rather than clog up the RS thread with their blow by blow actions that others aren't interested in.

Gers

Mine is due today. Haven't checked yet, just putting off the pleasure! 

veryintrigued

Gers said:

Mine is due today. Haven't checked yet, just putting off the pleasure! 

Mine too.

I've checked online at MBS and, in the last hour, it's gone from there (but not received at the nomination account yet) with an entry of:

CLOSURE TFR DEBIT

So a good start.

Gers

veryintrigued said:

Gers said:

Mine is due today. Haven't checked yet, just putting off the pleasure! 

Mine too.

I've checked online at MBS and, in the last hour, it's gone from there (but not received at the nomination account yet) with an entry of:

CLOSURE TFR DEBIT

So a good start.

Mine is still showing though there's now no option to transfer and a request is sitting in the side box.  I'm not anxious about receiving the monies...yet!

1882

Am I missing something?

My RS has matured and is now an Easy Saver issue 1. I can see nowhere on the online banking where I can withdraw this. The "Your bank account" section has details of my current account and says approved for transfer.