Nationwide - 'Mutual building society'?

TheElectricCow

[Deleted User] said:

For once a little bit of loyalty was rewarded. The biggest moaners seem to be those who spend time switching bank accounts in order to gain from any potential offer. This time they lost out 🥳.

The very reason I stick with Nationwide is that it is a mutual. I am not alone in that opinion either. 

Quite the opposite is true in my case - I opened a nationwide account solely for their £200 switching offer and since kept it open for no reason other than the 1 year introductory interest rate on £1500 in the current account. Each month I deposit exactly enough money to meet the conditions of this bonus rate then almost immediately redeposit that money elsewhere.

I also have one of their instant savings accounts that I opened at the same time, which randomly had some money in during the qualifying period while I was looking for somewhere better to leave it due to the poor Nationwide rates. This account has since been emptied and I have no intention to make further use of it for the time being. I do also have a start to save with a very small balance (sub-£100 so not enough to qualify for the payment), used just for convenience of needing a fund of small regular payments separate from my other accounts for a specific purpose later on.

I do not use Nationwide for any other general banking purposes, salary payments, or spending and have no loyalty to them whatsoever, yet because my regular money movements just so happened to coincide with their requirements I have inadvertently qualified for the £100. Naturally, I'm not moaning about it though, it's free money to me after all.

The whole Building Society thing is fine if that's what you're into, but personally I treat them just as I would any other regular bank and I'll likely leave if a more attractive offering elsewhere comes along that I can make better use off. The introductory interest bonus is now quite mediocre in the current market, and once that's over they don't really bring much to the table compared with other financial institutions.

p00hsticks

Section62 said:

TheBanker said:

The question is whether (a) the board want to demutualise and (b) whether the members want to.

Given anyone who's joined Nationwide since 1997 has signed any potential windfall over to charity, I can't see it happening.

 But given the direction of travel Nationwide has taken, what percentage of the membership would really think they would be worse off with demutualisation plus a cash bird in the hand?

I wonder how many would actually get that 'cash bird in the hand' though ?

 As far as I recall, Nationwide introduced anti-carpetting bagging clauses in their T&C s when opening new accounts after it became a trend decades ago, with any demutualisation pay out going to charity rather than the member.

There are probably fewer members out there with accounts pre-dating them than there are who have benefited from this recent £100 .......

IanManc

ForumUser7 said:

Re charitable assignment - with other BSs it is like after you’ve been with us for X years you are released from the agreement. Is that not the case with nationwide (if you joined after 1997)?

No it isn't the case with Nationwide.

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/help/charitable-assignment/

Section62

p00hsticks said:

Section62 said:

TheBanker said:

The question is whether (a) the board want to demutualise and (b) whether the members want to.

Given anyone who's joined Nationwide since 1997 has signed any potential windfall over to charity, I can't see it happening.

 But given the direction of travel Nationwide has taken, what percentage of the membership would really think they would be worse off with demutualisation plus a cash bird in the hand?

I wonder how many would actually get that 'cash bird in the hand' though ?

 As far as I recall, Nationwide introduced anti-carpetting bagging clauses in their T&C s when opening new accounts after it became a trend decades ago, with any demutualisation pay out going to charity rather than the member.

There are probably fewer members out there with accounts pre-dating them than there are who have benefited from this recent £100 .......

As per the first paragraph of my post you quoted... "AIUI the effect of the charitable assignment could be nullified if the 'society' believes it in the best interests of the 'society'..."

If a future Board wanted to demutualise I'm fairly sure they could find a way to do it.

vm2pensioner

p00hsticks said:

I confess I do find all the uproar on these boards  regarding Nationwide's mutual status just now strange, when it has been offering switch bonuses to new customers for a while and no-one here seems to have found that use of customers money either objectionable or discriminatory against its long term existing members...

These switch bonuses (and special interest rates such as the 5% on the FlexDirect account - and for 1 year only) have generally been offered to new customers just for current accounts, i.e. high-street-banking-type transactions, rather than for attracting savers like most building societies. It seems that Nationwide is re-balancing its customer base by trying to be a bank, other than in name, and without the plc suffix. Nearly all its advertising is about current accounts. Traditional building-society focus on savings for the benefit of its mutual members seems to be now of secondary importance.

badmemory

I would think that the Nationwide has figured out that a lot of people save with the bank they have a current account with & their first port of call if they want a mortgage is that same bank.

Rob5342

TheElectricCow said:

[Deleted User] said:

For once a little bit of loyalty was rewarded. The biggest moaners seem to be those who spend time switching bank accounts in order to gain from any potential offer. This time they lost out 🥳.

The very reason I stick with Nationwide is that it is a mutual. I am not alone in that opinion either. 

The whole Building Society thing is fine if that's what you're into, but personally I treat them just as I would any other regular bank and I'll likely leave if a more attractive offering elsewhere comes along that I can make better use off. The introductory interest bonus is now quite mediocre in the current market, and once that's over they don't really bring much to the table compared with other financial institutions.

I'm the same, I've used them a few times when they offered what I wanted but I moved on when I found somewhere better. I just looked at what the accounts offered me and took no notice of what sort of institution it was.  

Eldi_Dos

vm2pensioner said:

p00hsticks said:

I confess I do find all the uproar on these boards  regarding Nationwide's mutual status just now strange, when it has been offering switch bonuses to new customers for a while and no-one here seems to have found that use of customers money either objectionable or discriminatory against its long term existing members...

These switch bonuses (and special interest rates such as the 5% on the FlexDirect account - and for 1 year only) have generally been offered to new customers just for current accounts, i.e. high-street-banking-type transactions, rather than for attracting savers like most building societies. It seems that Nationwide is re-balancing its customer base by trying to be a bank, other than in name, and without the plc suffix. Nearly all its advertising is about current accounts. Traditional building-society focus on savings for the benefit of its mutual members seems to be now of secondary importance.

With the many bank branches closing throughout the country some high streets are becoming bank free. Nationwide has said they intend to keep as many branches open as possible. I can see them going for a one stop style of service where customers of banks can go into a Nationwide branch and treat it as if it was a branch of their own bank,for which Nationwide would receive a fee.
It also has the benefit of increase footfall as a opportunity for selling their own products.

badmemory

Originally I kept my Nationwide account open because I had had my mortgage with the Lancastrian & when Northern Rock took them over I got just short of £2500.  I didn't want to miss out if Nationwide did the same, even though it was unlikely.  That was before they said new members wouldn't get it.  Some people were opening up BS accounts & then forcing through the demutualling so that they would get a payout.

gsmh

[Deleted User] said:

For once a little bit of loyalty was rewarded. The biggest moaners seem to be those who spend time switching bank accounts in order to gain from any potential offer. This time they lost out 🥳.

The very reason I stick with Nationwide is that it is a mutual. I am not alone in that opinion either. 

Well said. I thought I was the only one on here who is dismissive of the serial switchers. I wish all banks would do more to ensure genuine switchers benefitted from incentives rather than the leechers pocketing large sums of free money.