Nationwide's 'Fairer Share' £100 payment for eligible members

zagfles

Well after missing out on the NW offer by a whisker, which was very annoying, the online banking system further annoyed me. Tried closing an account with nothing in it. Said I can't do that, closure not available at the moment, try next week. Wonder if they're getting a lot of closures

Another account had 1p in it. Tried transferring that to my current account. Didn't work, said need to select at least £1. Err, really? So selected £1. "Not enough funds"! Obviously. So it seems you can't transfer out of an account with less than £1 in it.

Perhaps I could have put £1 into in then transfer £1.01 out of it? Nah, CBA.

Tried to close that one. This time closure was available! So you can close some accounts, not others.

It gave me the option of transferring the balance to another account or getting a cheque sent in the post. Oooh, what shall I choose? I went for the latter. Wonder how much it'll cost them to send me a cheque for 1p?

ForumUser7

zagfles said:

Well after missing out on the NW offer by a whisker, which was very annoying, the online banking system further annoyed me. Tried closing an account with nothing in it. Said I can't do that, closure not available at the moment, try next week. Wonder if they're getting a lot of closures

Another account had 1p in it. Tried transferring that to my current account. Didn't work, said need to select at least £1. Err, really? So selected £1. "Not enough funds"! Obviously. So it seems you can't transfer out of an account with less than £1 in it.

Perhaps I could have put £1 into in then transfer £1.01 out of it? Nah, CBA.

Tried to close that one. This time closure was available! So you can close some accounts, not others.

It gave me the option of transferring the balance to another account or getting a cheque sent in the post. Oooh, what shall I choose? I went for the latter. Wonder how much it'll cost them to send me a cheque for 1p?

IIRC, nationwide allows online closures Monday-Saturday - I have used this feature before to look at earned interest, and then not closed it. I can’t remember the times, but it may be 7am-9pm. Unsure why they allowed you to do it for one but not the other.

Albermarle

spider42 said:

As others have said, the simple way Nationwide could distribute their surplus profits would have been to offer better interest rates so that there weren't any surplus profits in the first place! In their financial year to 4 April 2023, Nationwide's net interest margin increased to 1.57%. It was 1.26% in the previous year. I highly doubt that increase happened by accident, and will have been mainly as a result of deliberate management decisions when setting interest rates. Time after time, as base rates increased, Nationwide passed on less than the full increase, and increases have also been passed on more slowly than most other building societies. Yorkshire Building Society had a net interest margin of 1.30%, and Coventry's was 1.16% by way of comparison.

Nationwide's savings rates are generally awful. Their top savings rate is their regular savings account, Smart to Save, currently paying 5.25%. However, this only allows £50 to be paid in per month. Even most of the big banks offer both higher rates, and higher deposit limits on their regular savers (e.g. First Direct, HSBC subsidiary 7% with £300pm limit, Lloyds 6.25% with £250pm limit, NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland with 6.17% with £100pm limit, Halifax and Bank of Scotland with 5.5% with a £250pm limit).

Nationwide's highest currently available instant access rate is the Flex Instant Saver, which pays 2.5% and is exclusively available to their current account holders (lucky them!). Now let's look at Yorkshire Building Society. The LOWEST rate they offer on ANY of their savings accounts is 3.05%, with no requirement to hold other products in order to get that rate. Nationwide's lowest rate on legacy accounts (and also the rate on the only instant access account available to non current account holders) is only 1.25%. Yorkshire's lowest rate on any of their legacy accounts is 3.05%.

So Nationwide's highest instant access account (a current account loyalty product) pays 0.55% less than Yorkshire's lowest instant access account (even including all of their legacy accounts) - let that sink in for a minute!

Nationwide don't even bother to offer an instant access ISA. They have a limited access ISA, which pays 3.2% and allows 3 withdrawals a year. Yorkshire's instant access ISA pays 3.25%, with unlimited withdrawals. Yorkshire also offer a stunning loyalty ISA for those who have been a member for at least 12 months, paying 4.5% on the first £20,000 (with 4% on the excess over £20,000).

So the solution to this problem is simple - just pay better interest rates.

Just a small correction. Nationwide Loyalty easy access account is currently paying 3.2%, so more than YBS. However I think you have to be a member for at least 15? years.

huw01

Expotter said:

Whether this reward is "fair" to members or not is certainly a matter for discussion, but in my opinion this might actually backfire on Nationwide. 
Yes, they have made 3.4m of their customers very happy ( reported to be about a quarter of their membership) but that also means that the other 75% have been left feeling unvalued and treated as second class customers, myself included despite having a current account, savings account and credit card for years.
I can only speak for myself, but at the next available opportunity I'll be switching my account and taking my custom elsewhere. If Nationwide doesn't consider me a valued customer, why oh why should I value them? 

The available opportunity to switch a current account is always there, the current account switch service or doing it outside the service is available to anybody who wants to do it. An individual does not have to wait for an incentive from another bank to do this, if they are unhappy with the service that has been provided, they can move their custom elsewhere at any time.

I don't actually think it will backfire on Nationwide, yes some people will take the hump and leave because they've missed out. However, some will also think about moving their savings (some of them) to a Nationwide Savings account so they could qualify for a future payment. Also over time, this current account switching bonus that banks are offering will come to an end. It is becoming evident that people are only opening them to switch, bag the money and move on (I am guilty of this as much as anyone). The figures that are released for how many banks are gaining and losing customers generally correlate with if they were offering an inventive at that time.

If Nationwide stop offering the switching deal and in-place offer a payment for their customers year on year, it will probably in the long run expand their customer base.

Section62

Albermarle said:

Just a small correction. Nationwide Loyalty easy access account is currently paying 3.2%, so more than YBS. However I think you have to be a member for at least 15? years.

Unfortunately that account is NLA.  I think it was withdrawn about 2 years ago, possibly a bit longer.

Before going NLA the differential between the rates for different lengths of membership were progressively reduced before, IIRC, being replaced by a single band (for anyone with 1 year's membership or more?) which qualified for the single rate now left.

Previously the top rate was only available to members with something like 15 years of membership.

Expotter

huw01 said:

Expotter said:

Whether this reward is "fair" to members or not is certainly a matter for discussion, but in my opinion this might actually backfire on Nationwide. 
Yes, they have made 3.4m of their customers very happy ( reported to be about a quarter of their membership) but that also means that the other 75% have been left feeling unvalued and treated as second class customers, myself included despite having a current account, savings account and credit card for years.
I can only speak for myself, but at the next available opportunity I'll be switching my account and taking my custom elsewhere. If Nationwide doesn't consider me a valued customer, why oh why should I value them? 

The available opportunity to switch a current account is always there, the current account switch service or doing it outside the service is available to anybody who wants to do it. An individual does not have to wait for an incentive from another bank to do this, if they are unhappy with the service that has been provided, they can move their custom elsewhere at any time.

I don't actually think it will backfire on Nationwide, yes some people will take the hump and leave because they've missed out. However, some will also think about moving their savings (some of them) to a Nationwide Savings account so they could qualify for a future payment. Also over time, this current account switching bonus that banks are offering will come to an end. It is becoming evident that people are only opening them to switch, bag the money and move on (I am guilty of this as much as anyone). The figures that are released for how many banks are gaining and losing customers generally correlate with if they were offering an inventive at that time.

If Nationwide stop offering the switching deal and in-place offer a payment for their customers year on year, it will probably in the long run expand their customer base.

Perhaps you're right, but as I explicitly specified in my post, this is my opinion and I only speak for  myself. It just seems to me a strange marketing strategy to annoy 75% of your customer base, but of course you might view it differently.
In any case, I'll still leave and not just because I've 'taken the hump' as you put it, but because Nationwide offer me nothing that appeals to me or I can't get elsewhere and they obviously don't value my custom either.

Section62

huw01 said:

Also over time, this current account switching bonus that banks are offering will come to an end. It is becoming evident that people are only opening them to switch, bag the money and move on (I am guilty of this as much as anyone). The figures that are released for how many banks are gaining and losing customers generally correlate with if they were offering an inventive at that time.

I don't agree.  It is clear that switching incentives work - your own post confirms this - so why would the banks stop doing it?

The banks know that some people would switch and move on again soon after.  They are likely to have done calculations on how many are likely to do this before launching the offer.  The solution isn't to stop offering switch bonuses, instead all the banks need to do is to tinker with the T&C's regarding the amount of time you have to remain a customer and/or only allow you to benefit from an offer with them once. (e.g. First Direct).

That the banks have these levers and don't use them to the fullest extent would suggest they have calculated that a certain level of repeat switching is still beneficial to them.

It also depends what the bank's objectives and strategy are.  If the senior management teams performance related pay is based on "Number of new current accounts opened" then they are hardly going to complain if lots of customers want to help them out by switching multiple times.

huw01 said:

If Nationwide stop offering the switching deal and in-place offer a payment for their customers year on year, it will probably in the long run expand their customer base.

There's no indication they are planning to do this (yet).  I doubt their strategy involves not having a new switching incentive offer in the near future.

fourmarks

Expotter said:

Perhaps you're right, but as I explicitly specified in my post, this is my opinion and I only speak for  myself. It just seems to me a strange marketing strategy to annoy 75% of your customer base, but of course you might view it differently.
In any case, I'll still leave and not just because I've 'taken the hump' as you put it, but because Nationwide offer me nothing that appeals to me or I can't get elsewhere and they obviously don't value my custom either.

I have no idea myself, but how many of the 75% will actually be aware of their misfortune? I think we acknowledge that posters here are in the small minority of people who pay particularly close attention to the machinations of the banking world, and I have seen nothing in my newspapers, not even the money sections, commenting on the pay out. Nor have I seen, or heard, anything on other media outlets. Granted my coverage is hardly comprehensive, but in the great scheme of things it doesn't seem to have received much publicity. Assuming Nationwide haven't sent emails those customers not receiving the £100, and why on earth would they, then how many of that 75% are aware that they should be in a state of extreme high dudgeon?

Just wondering.

Expotter

fourmarks said:

Expotter said:

Perhaps you're right, but as I explicitly specified in my post, this is my opinion and I only speak for  myself. It just seems to me a strange marketing strategy to annoy 75% of your customer base, but of course you might view it differently.
In any case, I'll still leave and not just because I've 'taken the hump' as you put it, but because Nationwide offer me nothing that appeals to me or I can't get elsewhere and they obviously don't value my custom either.

I have no idea myself, but how many of the 75% will actually be aware of their misfortune? I think we acknowledge that posters here are in the small minority of people who pay particularly close attention to the machinations of the banking world, and I have seen nothing in my newspapers, not even the money sections, commenting on the pay out. Nor have I seen, or heard, anything on other media outlets. Granted my coverage is hardly comprehensive, but in the great scheme of things it doesn't seem to have received much publicity. Assuming Nationwide haven't sent emails those customers not receiving the £100, and why on earth would they, then how many of that 75% are aware that they should be in a state of extreme high dudgeon?

Just wondering.

Some might have read this for example:

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-12105987/12m-Nationwide-customers-miss-100.html?ico=mol_desktop_money-newtab&molReferrerUrl=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/index.html

But you're right, many are probably oblivious to the fact. To reiterate, I only speak for myself and my own response, anyone else can do what they like. How representative I may or may not be of their membership is another matter altogether.

Section62

fourmarks said:

 Assuming Nationwide haven't sent emails those customers not receiving the £100, and why on earth would they, then how many of that 75% are aware that they should be in a state of extreme high dudgeon?

Just wondering.

There is mass-media coverage, but some people may well miss it....

Nationwide to pay £340m of profits directly into customers’ accounts

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/19/nationwide-to-pay-340m-of-profits-directly-into-customers-accounts

So the question might be, how many of the 75% have seen the headline and made the assumption they will get their "fairer share" in due course... so will be in a "state of extreme high dudgeon" only when the money doesn't turn up in June?

I would have thought Nationwide should be emailing the unlucky ones to explain where the £340m has gone, and that if the offer is repeated next year what they are likely to need to do to qualify.  I.e. open a current account and use it as their "main" one, for a start.

There's no point giving away £340m to encourage people to have and use a Nationwide current account if you don't let them know they should.... basic marketing I'd have thought.