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

TheBanker

MDMD said:

The Britannia Building Society used to have a scheme where a member got points worth a cash amount, the more products you had the more points you got. There’s nothing to stop NW doing something similar, including issuing points based on current account use. Although you needed a minimum points amount to get any payout.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-1596705/Rewards-for-Britannia-members.html

Clearly Britannia had other problems but these would not apply here given NW are better capitalised.

That could be a good scheme. People could accrue points during the year, then the cash value of each point could be determined at the end if the year based on the total points awarded and the profit available for distribution. 

zagfles

xylophone said:

Having an empty savings/current account (for example) does not classify you as an 'active member'.

"Active" or not is irrelevant - OP is still a member.

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/about-us/

Nationwide isn't a bank

We’re a building society, or mutual, owned by our members. That’s anyone who banks, saves or has a mortgage with us. We’re run for their benefit and to help the communities around us. We’re not run for shareholders in the same way that banks are.

But some are more equal than others?

Indeed. Nationwide "isn't a bank" but unless you "bank" with them you're not considered a worthy member.

BooJewels

It's not just having a current account either, you also needed to deposit £500 each month for the 2 specified months.  I put in £400 one month and a chunk more than that in the second month straight to savings.  So I deposited more than £1k with them over the qualifying period, just not quite how they stipulated. 

wmb194

zagfles said:

wmb194 said:

Albermarle said:

As I said in one of the other threads, current accounts are not a building society thing. Out of the 40+ UK building societies Nationwide is the only one to offer a current account (except Cumberland who only offer it in their area).

They are the only building society to offer a current account, partly because other large building societies that did offer current accounts ( Abbey National & Halifax to name two I am aware of ) demutualised and became banks.

Also Nationwide are approx. 5 times bigger than their largest rival, in terms of assets, members and branches, and of the Top 10 building societies they are bigger than all the other nine put together. So a somewhat special case in the world of UK building societies and in my local town, the only current account provider with a branch still offering banking services to local people.

There were others, though. I can think of Coventry and N&P/YBS giving up on current accounts. You might have thought these two would have been able to give it a go.

But they were never a core building society product. Just like mobile phone contracts were never a core supermarket product. Are you a "loyal customer" if you make use of the company's core products regularly for decades? Apparently not in the case of Nationwide.

I don't disagree but they wanted them to be a core product and clearly so does Nationwide. 

I see this 'fairer' payout as a continuation of its recent marketing drive to obtain more current account customers who then open savings accounts, buy insurance, buy investment products, go overdrawn, take out mortgages and so on. 

If you look at it through this lens it all makes sense; ignore all of the flowery stuff around 'fairer,' 'mutual,' 'no shareholders' and the rest. For years - and also for many other building societies as well - that's just been a marketing USP. It is a profit seeking business seeking to perpetuate itself. If it thinks that gaining more current account customers is the way to do this then that's what it will do and, unless there's a massive backlash that hits the bottom line, it won't care about appearing hypocritical to some people.

boingy

However you look at it, a mutual that shares a chunk of the profits with only one fifth of their members is not really a fairer share. 

Exodi

xylophone said:

Exodi said:
Having an empty savings/current account (for example) does not classify you as an 'active member'.

"Active" or not is irrelevant - OP is still a member.

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/about-us/

But some are more equal than others?

I think if your position is that people that hold inactive current accounts and empty savings accounts should be entitled, then it's clear we disagree on more than just semantics.

However I understand this topic is sour grapes for a lot of people and I do not intend to debate the vocal posters expressing their disappointment in this thread.

I have a feeling that if, instead of paying £100 to 20% of their members, they decided to pay £20 to 100% of their members, their would be similar complaints that Boingy is getting a bonus, despite holding no savings, no mortgage and an unused current account.

zagfles said:

Exodi said:

Respondents on Facebook to this news were spitting feathers over the eligibility criteria (which is not suprising), however I am suprised at the relatively similar reaction here, considering the different demographic.

I even saw one poster taking issue that the eligibility period was in the past...

For those asking why they didn't communicate their eligibility criteria beforehand, the bonus is aimed at rewarding their loyal members. It would have been counter-intuitive to announce these terms in January, have everyone from MSE rush over to open an account for two months, depositing the absolute bare minimum and vanish after the £100 bonus was paid.

Oh really? You could have switched to them in Feb 2023, opened a STS account for the 5% interest, paid £100 in over 2 months and you'd qualify. 3 months membership and 2 transactions is "loyalty"?

Whereas someone who's had a mortgage and savings accounts, ie core building society products, with them for 20+ years doesn't qualify, unless they also have a current account and used it in a particular way.

I don't work for Nationwide, but if I did, I would have set the eligibility period longer than from March. But I appreciate your two very specific examples at either extreme. Perhaps the word 'active' instead of 'loyal' would have been less controversial.

I'd imagine there is this much uproar because Nationwide is generally one of the cheapest mortgage lenders, so there are many, many mortgage borrowers that don't have current accounts that feel aggrieved?

Their savings accounts have never been anything to write home about.

BooJewels

It doesn't have to be 'sour grapes' to express the view that their criteria for this share doesn't quite look as 'fair' as they were perhaps hoping for.  I also completely understand that whatever criteria they set, there would be disgruntled losers and unworthy winners - that'll be unavoidable.  I've no reason to feel sour grapes for myself, as I wasn't expecting anything and it would have been a very nice bonus if I'd qualified - but it does seem odd that a building society rated current account activity above more lucrative mortgages and savings.

I have this mental image of the bosses in front of a bank of boffins at computers asking them to crunch the database and come up with a set of criteria that will give him exactly a certain number of customers he can give a hundred quid to.

metrobus

Exodi , I agree their savings rates have been nothing to write home about, but the new fairer 2 year bond at 4.75% is OK and it might persuade some of the sour grape mob on here to become active savers and then more likely to be eligible for the payout should there be one next year. Then I am sure they will stop their moaning.

Freebird53

metrobus said:

Exodi , I agree their savings rates have been nothing to write home about, but the new fairer 2 year bond at 4.75% is OK and it might persuade some of the sour grape mob on here to become active savers and then more likely to be eligible for the payout should there be one next year. Then I am sure they will stop their moaning.

Sorry, i didn't mean to give your comment a thumbs up, as it would appear that I am one of the 'sour grapes mob' you refer to.

But as i can't 'thumbs down' your comment....

Section62

Exodi said:

However I understand this topic is sour grapes for a lot of people and I do not intend to debate the vocal posters expressing their disappointment in this thread.

I find it disappointing people feel the need to use words like "sour grapes" to describe other forum members putting forward reasonable and balanced comments about how allocating £340m of money to ~20% of members of a mutual building society doesn't represent a "fairer share".

I will get the £100. So in my case it definitely isn't "sour grapes".

Some of the negativity expressed here about other Nationwide members encapsulates (to me) why Nationwide is going in the wrong direction (not just over this £100).  Such negativity shouldn't exist within a mutual membership - if we were to sum up the negativity to others as "better luck next time losers" then it might be easier to understand why some perceive what Nationwide have done to be divisive and unfair, and contrary to the principles of mutuality.