Nationwide take over of Virgin Money

MACKEM99

Virginwide?

WillPS

Section62 said:

WillPS said:

Little note on there for the moaners/diehard carpetbaggers who sniffed a whiff of demutualisation with last year's rebrand:

Importantly, Nationwide will remain a building society.

The forum members who were commenting on Nationwide then are not "moaners".  As members of Nationwide, and of this forum, they are allowed to have a different opinion to you about the way Nationwide is managed, without having a derogatory label attached to them.

In terms of being a member of a mutual building society, note that the statement issued today says "Virgin Money customers would not automatically become members of Nationwide".  In fact (as predicted by some here IIRC) it looks like Nationwide may be planning to operate a 'bank' subsidiary as a separate entity.

Which means our mutual (which some of us feel means having some degree of equality in ownership and the benefits available) building society will then have three classes of 'membership'...  the 'eligible' members who get free cash as a result of luck (or gaming the system), members who help earn the money that pays the free cash but don't get it themselves, and the VirginMoney customers who won't be members at all (unless they also have Nationwide accounts).

Not 'demutualisation' - but a big departure from the mutual ethos if it happens.

You absolutely were moaning about the branding then as now you're reaching conclusions which are not merited by the evidence. There's a key word in the text which you're conveniently not quoting -

Virgin Money customers would not automatically become members of Nationwide.

(my bold).

Note that they're not saying, as you incorrectly claim, that they won't become Nationwide members - they're saying it won't happen automatically upon the transaction completing.

It'll take years (4 it seems they're planning, looking at the details of the Virgin license they've agreed) to merge the two operations together and it's entirely possible that some will remain functions of Clydesdale Bank plc - my guess would be that they'll find it simpler to retain that subsidiary in order to fulfill their Scottish note printing obligations. Perhaps they'll maintain a totally separate retail presence but that seems vanishingly unlikely to me as anything other than an interim step.

I'm glad you've dropped the notion that this is all a rouse while they line themselves up for demutualisation tho.

boingy

MACKEM99 said:

Virginwide?

Someone had to say it.... 

Rob5342

Albermarle said:

King_Of_Fools said:

wmb194 said:

Nationwide thinks it already has problems with creaking IT...

Yes, I have a current account, credit card and savings account with Virgin and they use three different systems with different logins.

• The current account can be accessed on the website or via an app
• The credit card can only be accessed via a different app
• The savings account can only be accessed by a different website login (and you have to remember what your savings account sort code is as there are three different choices each with different logins)

I imagine they have given themselves 6 years to sort out all the different systems.

I find Nationwide app/IT/website to work fine, and with none of the issues mentioned above.

The more tech savvy ( younger ?) posters who decry Nationwide IT, say it is behind the times compared to some of the new banks. However for normal use it does the job, and in the last few days the app has changed its appearance to look more modern .

It depends what you mean by normal use, I'd consider some the things that their archaic app is missing to be fundamental requirments. Changing the appearance is just a paintjob on a rusting piece of junk.

Given they cloned Natwest when they rebranded themselves I wonder what they have in mind for a Virgin money rebrand? Maybe they'll call it Vloyds and have some iconic black ponies on the adverts.

adamp87

Ahh I just read about that my mistake. I wasn’t a fan of the rebrand to Virgin. It looked horrible, and most things they get hold of seem to go in a few years too.

be a lot of job losses I imagine from a customer facing perspective 

Section62

WillPS said:

Section62 said:

WillPS said:

Little note on there for the moaners/diehard carpetbaggers who sniffed a whiff of demutualisation with last year's rebrand:

Importantly, Nationwide will remain a building society.

The forum members who were commenting on Nationwide then are not "moaners".  As members of Nationwide, and of this forum, they are allowed to have a different opinion to you about the way Nationwide is managed, without having a derogatory label attached to them.

In terms of being a member of a mutual building society, note that the statement issued today says "Virgin Money customers would not automatically become members of Nationwide".  In fact (as predicted by some here IIRC) it looks like Nationwide may be planning to operate a 'bank' subsidiary as a separate entity.

Which means our mutual (which some of us feel means having some degree of equality in ownership and the benefits available) building society will then have three classes of 'membership'...  the 'eligible' members who get free cash as a result of luck (or gaming the system), members who help earn the money that pays the free cash but don't get it themselves, and the VirginMoney customers who won't be members at all (unless they also have Nationwide accounts).

Not 'demutualisation' - but a big departure from the mutual ethos if it happens.

You absolutely were moaning about the branding then as now you're reaching conclusions which are not merited by the evidence. There's a key word in the text which you're conveniently not quoting -

Virgin Money customers would not automatically become members of Nationwide.

You mean the key word correctly quoted in my previous post which is now in bold+italics?

Or the bit where I said "(unless they also have Nationwide accounts)" to acknowledge the point that some 'VirginMoney' customers will be Nationwide members already and/or could become one by opening a Nationwide account.

I'm not "reaching conclusions".  I'm speculating.  Which is what pretty much all of us are currently doing because only a select few at Nationwide will know the full plans.

Albermarle

@Lightning360
It might look a bit more modern (the app that is. The online banking is still from the 90s) but it still lacks so many features that essentially every other bank has at the moment.

@Rob5432

It depends what you mean by normal use, I'd consider some the things that their archaic app is missing to be fundamental requirments. Changing the appearance is just a paintjob on a rusting piece of junk.

Could one of you actually explain what critical features the Nationwide app is lacking?
Genuine question as I am not sure what I am missing.

PaulW922

steven141 said:

I wonder if this would affect the printing of Clydesdale Bank notes or if that would end. 

I had the same thought. I am only guessing, but I would not think Nationwide will have the same enthusiasm for this that Virgin/Clydesdale currently has. But all the time Virgin Money remains a Scottish bank then it can carry on. 

Section62

Albermarle said:

Could one of you actually explain what critical features the Nationwide app is lacking?
Genuine question as I am not sure what I am missing.

The ability to pay cheques in comes up quite often.

RG2015

MACKEM99 said:

Virginwide?

Didn't she win Wimbledon in 1977?