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

Bazzalona13295

Dust off the debit card time then!

BooJewels

I too just missed out last year, on a technicality - but nowhere near as badly as others - like those with large mortgages who were arguably making them more money than customers like me.  I was a bit irritated at the time - I felt that something that benefitted all customers (maybe with a date that you had to have been with them) would have been more in the spirit of their remit.

I won't qualify this year as my savings account matured and I moved the balance elsewhere and I certainly won't be making any effort to do so.

elkiedee

I was pleased that one of my teenage sons qualified but sad that the other one didn't - they each have a Flex One Account (11-17 account with a debit card, no overdraft as under 18, 2% interest on any balance) and a savings account, but I realised too late that their savings accounts are accounts opened when they were babies with passbooks - so they're held for them in my name. One of them has a cash child trust fund, the other has his elsewhere. I've now opened a Flex Saver for my older son who lost out and transferred all but £1 into that, plus some money given to me by my stepmother on his behalf. I will do the same for the other one, but we need to sit down and go through it together but he still has the CTF anyway, plus he can't spend it all (it's not a huge amount for 3 years). Teenage account holders needed £100 in their savings to benefit last year, I think. The older one is a bit more sensible with his money and I think there's more chance of him keeping the savings that are under his control at least until he needs them for something costly, or if he goes into higher education next year.

However, the older one's CTF is a stocks and shares one - it shrank at the beginning during the crash, but he now has over £600 more in that than his brother does, so a lot more than the £100. 

I now have a current account opened in late January. I've had a lot of money paid in and out of it this month, but am going to have to do a bit of juggling cash around in March. And they may well apply different criteria - perhaps ones that benefit some people who lost out in 2023 etc. I will be saying to myself and kids, look, anything we get is a bonus, and I think the accounts we have work well enough for our needs, plus we have a Nationwide branch in walking distance/a short bus ride away. That's why my kids and I have Nationwide accounts - my partner/their dad is also a customer with a current account there, and they make a lot of money off him in overdraft interest!, but has literally a few pence in his savings (he is better at spending money than saving/managing it).

ZeroSum

refluxer said:

Largs said:

I am sure the other current account stipulation in addition to £500 in, was 2 payments out.  

Well remembered - I quickly checked back through the thread and found this quote...

"Plus, you must have made at least two payments out of your account each month, in two of those three months"

I suspect that meant payments either by debit card or a direct debit, rather than transfers to other accounts ?

I got the money & the only payments I'd made were faster payments to external accounts. However I might do a couple of Debit card ones just in case.

That said, they did get a lot of criticism from people with a lot of money in savings, so might review that and I've got ISA's with them & also mortgage. So should be covered.

kaMelo

refluxer said:

As a reminder, the criteria for last year's offer was...

• Current account: To be a qualifying current account, your account must have been open on 31 March 2023. Qualifying members must still have a current account in June. 

• Savings: You will have had qualifying savings if you had at least £100 in total in one or more personal savings accounts or cash ISAs with Nationwide at the end of any day in March 2023. 

• Mortgage: To be a qualifying mortgage, you must owe us at least £100 on your Nationwide residential mortgage on 31 March 2023. 

...but it was this stipulation in the small print that made me ineligible... and many others who don't use their Nationwide current account as their main current account, I suspect.

• Between 1 January and 31 March 2023, did you pay in a minimum of £500 for at least 2 of the months? Transfers in from other Nationwide accounts do not count.

So with that in mind, it may be worth ensuring the current account is used for the next few months in a similar manner. That's presuming that (a) they actually make the payment again and (b) the terms are similar to last year, of course.

What you've said is correct but important to note also that the pay in/spending requirement did not apply to FlexPlus current account holders. Being a paid for packaged account, merely holding the account was enough to satisfy the current account criteria.
Reading the AGM minutes gave some reasoning behind their decision to require holding a current account to be eligible for any payment.  At any one time there is around £35 Billion pounds sat in Nationwide current accounts earning no interest. Savers were rewarded with improved interest rates, mortgage holders were rewarded (if that's the correct word) with less than average increases to their mortgage interest rates.  This was a way of rewarding current account holders who had not benefited from increased interest rates up to that point.

Londonlisa12

So even at only 1% the  deposits held at zero interest more than  covered the payout.

zagfles

kaMelo said:

refluxer said:

As a reminder, the criteria for last year's offer was...

• Current account: To be a qualifying current account, your account must have been open on 31 March 2023. Qualifying members must still have a current account in June. 

• Savings: You will have had qualifying savings if you had at least £100 in total in one or more personal savings accounts or cash ISAs with Nationwide at the end of any day in March 2023. 

• Mortgage: To be a qualifying mortgage, you must owe us at least £100 on your Nationwide residential mortgage on 31 March 2023. 

...but it was this stipulation in the small print that made me ineligible... and many others who don't use their Nationwide current account as their main current account, I suspect.

• Between 1 January and 31 March 2023, did you pay in a minimum of £500 for at least 2 of the months? Transfers in from other Nationwide accounts do not count.

So with that in mind, it may be worth ensuring the current account is used for the next few months in a similar manner. That's presuming that (a) they actually make the payment again and (b) the terms are similar to last year, of course.

What you've said is correct but important to note also that the pay in/spending requirement did not apply to FlexPlus current account holders. Being a paid for packaged account, merely holding the account was enough to satisfy the current account criteria.
Reading the AGM minutes gave some reasoning behind their decision to require holding a current account to be eligible for any payment.  At any one time there is around £35 Billion pounds sat in Nationwide current accounts earning no interest. Savers were rewarded with improved interest rates, mortgage holders were rewarded (if that's the correct word) with less than average increases to their mortgage interest rates.  This was a way of rewarding current account holders who had not benefited from increased interest rates up to that point.

Why not just pay interest on current accounts then? Instead they paid the bonus to active current account users who may pay in once a month and pay bills/withdraw/transfer out straight away, so have a very low average balance, whereas someone sat with £10k in a current account with no transactions didn't get the bonus.

WillPS

kaMelo said:

refluxer said:

As a reminder, the criteria for last year's offer was...

• Current account: To be a qualifying current account, your account must have been open on 31 March 2023. Qualifying members must still have a current account in June. 

• Savings: You will have had qualifying savings if you had at least £100 in total in one or more personal savings accounts or cash ISAs with Nationwide at the end of any day in March 2023. 

• Mortgage: To be a qualifying mortgage, you must owe us at least £100 on your Nationwide residential mortgage on 31 March 2023. 

...but it was this stipulation in the small print that made me ineligible... and many others who don't use their Nationwide current account as their main current account, I suspect.

• Between 1 January and 31 March 2023, did you pay in a minimum of £500 for at least 2 of the months? Transfers in from other Nationwide accounts do not count.

So with that in mind, it may be worth ensuring the current account is used for the next few months in a similar manner. That's presuming that (a) they actually make the payment again and (b) the terms are similar to last year, of course.

What you've said is correct but important to note also that the pay in/spending requirement did not apply to FlexPlus current account holders. Being a paid for packaged account, merely holding the account was enough to satisfy the current account criteria.

Another exception to the monthly pay in/payment stipulation was for anyone who had CASS'd in during the first 3 months of 2023.

kaMelo

zagfles said:

kaMelo said:

refluxer said:

As a reminder, the criteria for last year's offer was...

• Current account: To be a qualifying current account, your account must have been open on 31 March 2023. Qualifying members must still have a current account in June. 

• Savings: You will have had qualifying savings if you had at least £100 in total in one or more personal savings accounts or cash ISAs with Nationwide at the end of any day in March 2023. 

• Mortgage: To be a qualifying mortgage, you must owe us at least £100 on your Nationwide residential mortgage on 31 March 2023. 

...but it was this stipulation in the small print that made me ineligible... and many others who don't use their Nationwide current account as their main current account, I suspect.

• Between 1 January and 31 March 2023, did you pay in a minimum of £500 for at least 2 of the months? Transfers in from other Nationwide accounts do not count.

So with that in mind, it may be worth ensuring the current account is used for the next few months in a similar manner. That's presuming that (a) they actually make the payment again and (b) the terms are similar to last year, of course.

What you've said is correct but important to note also that the pay in/spending requirement did not apply to FlexPlus current account holders. Being a paid for packaged account, merely holding the account was enough to satisfy the current account criteria.
Reading the AGM minutes gave some reasoning behind their decision to require holding a current account to be eligible for any payment.  At any one time there is around £35 Billion pounds sat in Nationwide current accounts earning no interest. Savers were rewarded with improved interest rates, mortgage holders were rewarded (if that's the correct word) with less than average increases to their mortgage interest rates.  This was a way of rewarding current account holders who had not benefited from increased interest rates up to that point.

Why not just pay interest on current accounts then? Instead they paid the bonus to active current account users who may pay in once a month and pay bills/withdraw/transfer out straight away, so have a very low average balance, whereas someone sat with £10k in a current account with no transactions didn't get the bonus.

I don't disagree, the flexdirect account generates interest, the FlexPlus used to generate interest, it's not beyond possible to enable some form of interest rate on all their current accounts.

This would also fit in nicely with their current advertising campaign about how they are different from other banks.

Alas, I'm not the the one making that decision, I just relayed the thinking behind why Nationwide did what they did. .

Section62

kaMelo said:

zagfles said:

kaMelo said:

Why not just pay interest on current accounts then? Instead they paid the bonus to active current account users who may pay in once a month and pay bills/withdraw/transfer out straight away, so have a very low average balance, whereas someone sat with £10k in a current account with no transactions didn't get the bonus.

I don't disagree, the flexdirect account generates interest, the FlexPlus used to generate interest, it's not beyond possible to enable some form of interest rate on all their current accounts.

This would also fit in nicely with their current advertising campaign about how they are different from other banks.

Alas, I'm not the the one making that decision, I just relayed the thinking behind why Nationwide did what they did. .

The FlexAccount also used to pay interest, as well as having the free travel insurance perk.

Then Nationwide took those away.

And later on, when making 'massive profits', decided to give free cash to a minority of members and expect us all to feel Nationwide is "on []our side".

Nationwide being "different" is just marketing spin - under the current leadership they are just the same as the banks, albeit with a different ownership structure and slightly different priorities.