51 Years of NatWest Ends!!!

Thumbs_Up

Thumbs_Up said:

Been with NatWest for under 2 years, i like the 6.17% digital saver and i have the 6.20% 2 year ISA which now is starting to look very good. I'm sticking.

Edit- i should add they won't give me a overdraft on the debit card, but hey-ho.

My comments are a bit bombastic and maybe a bit insensitive to posters who are reporting problems with the bank they are having due to bereavement.

My comments were referring to their products.  

Largs

Thumbs_Up said:

Thumbs_Up said:

Been with NatWest for under 2 years, i like the 6.17% digital saver and i have the 6.20% 2 year ISA which now is starting to look very good. I'm sticking.

Edit- i should add they won't give me a overdraft on the debit card, but hey-ho.

My comments are a bit bombastic and maybe a bit insensitive to posters who are reporting problems with the bank they are having due to bereavement.

My comments were referring to their products.  

Hi.  No problem, we all have differnent experiences.  

Rob5342

Rawrzy said:

I think Natwest have a really good app.

I'd say it was fairly good. It's nowhere near as good as Monzo and Starlings.with their pots/spaces and instant notifications, but it's certainly better than Nationwide's archaic offering.

MrFrugalFever

I've been with them for nearly 18 years now and they've been my main accounts for both salary input and bills / general daily spending etc. 

Other than throwing my toys out the pram over the way their system works with how credit reporting data etc is handled/managed/pulled/viewed I've not really had any issues at all. Can't really comment on any of the other major banks as never really been with them (tried a few fintech startups like Tred and Kroo, still with Kroo but ditched Tred when they imposed £3pm charge and no benefit to have their account). Looking at general service reviews it seems like the major players are all as bad as eachother.

I'm considering opening a First Direct Account, due to the high service related score, the £175 switch offer, the 7% regular saver and the £250 0% overdraft.

boingy

I had a NatWest account from student days until the late 90's when they went badly off the rails. Suddenly you couldn't phone your branch, the central phone banking was dreadful and they cocked up several of my standing orders then charged me for going overdrawn as a result. I think they tried for make too many money-saving changes at once. So I dumped them and swore to have nothing to do with them again. That lasted until this year when I started playing the switching £££ game. I'm happy to take their free money but I'll never really forgive them.

Fun anecdote. A few years later I played in an open golf tournament and was paired with a chap who was part of the team responsible for integrating NatWest into the RBS  systems. He told me that if RBS had realised what a mess NatWest were in they might not have bought them. I guess due diligence only gets you so far...

I can recommend First Direct. They seem to be at the better end of things and you can speak to a real person on the phone and, more importantly, that person usually has the knowledge and authority to sort the problem.

robatwork

Finally!

Someone who has been persuaded by the new nationwide logo. Looks like we were all wrong to be so cynical.

MEM62

mortgageFTB said:

Crazy that people stick with a company for decades lol.

If it ain't broke...........

EssexHebridean

DullGreyGuy said:

SiliconChip said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Natwest is a breeze to deal with compared to Nationwide... think they have modernised a bit since my dealings with them but there was a lot of having to post forms to them (eg CoA) or going in branch which then just gets posted internally whereas NW and all our other banks you could self serve online or via telephone banking

What are you trying to do with Nationwide that can't be done online or through the App? It's probably 15 years since I had to go to a branch to do something other than pay in cash or cheques, neither of which I do any more. All the account opening I've done in the last 10 years has been achieved online (there might at some point have been a form to sign, but I don't recall anything in the last few years). At no point has CoA required a form to be completed. Perhaps there is some peculiarity to the way that you operate your account that makes them ask you to do things that nobody else has to.

At the time, and it probably was a while back seeing how long its been since we moved house, you couldn't do a change of address online... maybe I didn't have telephone banking, I don't normally bother phoning banks these days, but certainly when I sent a general message the reply back I got was to fill in a form and post it off and it would take a few weeks to process or I could go in branch but it'd still take a few weeks to process. 

I accept they may have caught up but they were just really old-fashioned and clunky when I was dealing with them. Stopped banking with NW even longer ago, at their request, but even then I could update addresses online etc. I do currently have mortgage with them and the only criticism would be the wait time to call them. 

I can confirm that Nationwide's change of address process currently is incredibly simple. It was about the first thing I changed, which in itself indicates how easy it was as anything which was even slightly complex was immediately pushed back to "we'll deal with that later!" 

Barkin

mortgageFTB said:

Crazy that people stick with a company for decades lol.

Why's that then?

I've had my main current account with the same bank for over 40 years. It does all that I want & need from a current account, and I've had no cause for complaint in that time.

What would be crazy is moving 'cause somebody on a forum thinks that's too long, and potentially jumping into a shed load of unforseen & unnecessary problems that I've not had before. 

Middle_of_the_Road

mortgageFTB said:

Crazy that people stick with a company for decades lol.

You might think that, but it was the way most people managed their finances before all the comparison sites and easy switching came about.
You might also not know how banking was a more personal experience in the previous century. Local bank were on every high street, and it was much easier to speak to someone who could deal with issues at branch level. 
Fewer people had cause to consider leaving a bank they were perfectly happy with, and it would have entailed some effort to change over.
Why would they want to start over, with another bank they have no previous relationship with, when their current bank does all they need?

I've been with Natwest for over 30 years, and even though branches have closed and I do all my banking online, I've no reason to close my account. I have opened other accounts and had switching bonuses. I currently have 11 accounts and use each for different purposes and had no problems with any of them. Most of the modern banks are better at some things, but I still prefer traditional banks for managing my money.  Your views are as valid as the next persons, but there's nothing funny about having the same account for decades. Times have changed.