Nottingham Building Society - new logo and branding

IanManc

simonsmithsays said:

So Beehive to disappear.

We’re getting in touch with all our members with something important to share. Beehive Money is changing to Nottingham Building Society.

Why the change?

Beehive Money has always been part of Nottingham Building Society - and now we’re bringing our online and branch customers together under one name.

We want all our customers to know they are part of one big community. Where everyone can experience the benefits of being a member of Nottingham Building Society and owning the place where they save and borrow. As a mutual building society our members are at the centre of our thinking. We know your financial needs and money circumstances are ever-evolving and one of a kind - and we’re here to help you reach your goals.

Nottingham BS only set up the Beehive brand in August 2021. It seemed pointless at the time. Clearly the penny has now dropped with them too.

t1redmonkey

Maybe they'll launch a decent Regular Saver as part of the 'merge', seeing as neither are currently offering one

flaneurs_lobster

t1redmonkey said:

Maybe they'll launch a decent Regular Saver as part of the 'merge', seeing as neither are currently offering one

Let's hope they at least extend the Beehive online/app access to their funky new Notts BS brand.

allegro120

t1redmonkey said:

Maybe they'll launch a decent Regular Saver as part of the 'merge', seeing as neither are currently offering one

Some years ago Nottingham BS offered a few very competitive RSs, I recall having two (or may be even three) of theirs simultaneously.  Then they stopped releasing any attractive savings products for few years and only recently offered 6% (£500p/m) which stayed on the shelf for only 1 week.  It would be nice if they go back to offering attractive savings products and absorb Beehive's on-line and app banking features.

Section62

IanManc said:

simonsmithsays said:

So Beehive to disappear.

We’re getting in touch with all our members with something important to share. Beehive Money is changing to Nottingham Building Society.

Why the change?

Beehive Money has always been part of Nottingham Building Society - and now we’re bringing our online and branch customers together under one name.

We want all our customers to know they are part of one big community. Where everyone can experience the benefits of being a member of Nottingham Building Society and owning the place where they save and borrow. As a mutual building society our members are at the centre of our thinking. We know your financial needs and money circumstances are ever-evolving and one of a kind - and we’re here to help you reach your goals.

Nottingham BS only set up the Beehive brand in August 2021. It seemed pointless at the time. Clearly the penny has now dropped with them too.

I believe the strategy was to keep their online service separate to the main branch/postal operation in order to protect the branch network (i.e. if you can do it online you don't need to visit a branch and if people don't use branches there's no point having them).  There's a logic to it, but they were swimming against the tide with both arms tied behind their backs.  Having CS staff pretending that Beehive was a completely different organisation to Nottingham BS simply wasn't sustainable.

For me the daftness of the situation will only reduce when existing Nottingham members can sign up for the online service without having to jump through photo ID hoops with a 'trusted partner' third party provider, and that (as a minimum) there is read-only visibility of other Nottingham savings accounts.  Neither of which ought to be beyond the capabilities of a top-ten building society.

WillPS

From what I was told in branch when we opened our Savings Week regular savers, I wouldn't expect offline/branch accounts to be visible online for some considerable time.

It's pretty sad to think that 40 years ago Nottingham Building Society customers had online access to their accounts (via prestel) but in 2024 it's a trip or phone call to a branch.

Section62

This is how they responsed to questions at the 2023 AGM (24th April 2023)

https://www.thenottingham.com/about-us/annual-general-meeting/2023-annual-general-meeting

If "working hard" and being "a priority" equates to 19 months later still having no idea when this might happen then members who value having online access to their accounts might justifiably wonder what is going on.

I've not watched the whole of the 2024 AGM, but of what I have watched/seen there was no update on progress on this 'priority' piece of work.

OrangeBlueGreen

I echo the comments here about online access, though I quite like their rebrand.

I emailed them yesterday to ask about access, because that new branding says "new ,fresh" and it appears it's only Beehive accounts that will be online, nothing else. 

I personally would have waited to do the rebrand until online access was available for all accounts. In 2024, I'd expect most would expect online access as a given and if the rebrand attracts new customers, then I think they will either turn away or be disappointed when they realise that online banking is not a thing for non-Beehive accounts. It's just a non-starter for me.

If they have TVs in branches, it makes me wonder if they're still black and white! /s