Nottingham Building Society - new logo and branding

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.

Section62

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.

I've not seen it advertised or reported elsewhere, but it seems that time has arrived.

Nottingham BS now have an online portal for branch accounts giving basic access to view transactions, generate statements and tax certificates, and possibly to move money between accounts (although I've not tried that feature yet).

This doesn't appear to be the same as the online portal for online accounts (the ex-Beehive one) and doesn't require the Onfido photo ID nonsense before you can start using it.

I didn't see anything on the Nottingham website about it, it was a branch staff member who suggested I used it, and then set it up for me. So it isn't clear whether they are ready to roll it out to all members, or only to those who ask (or get invited?).

Thanks to the brilliant branch staff member who recently suggested this to me when I had a query about interest payments. Otherwise I'd still be waiting to do what much smaller building societies have allowed members to do for a long long time.

happybagger

@Section62 that's useful. They seem to have prepared the help pages at https://nottingham-building-society.my.site.com/s/login/ which give info on "existing customers" ie of branch accounts, it was telling me I had already registered to did a password reset. However it then sent me to the "complete your ID" stuff with their selfie nonsense. This may be because I went to open an online account with them but had to abandon at this stage.

They appear to have registered my email address without having completed the process.

*Edit: Called the branch and all sorted, very good service on the phones.

When logged in you can able to open new accounts too (they said on the phone you can't, that you could only view accounts)

[For me, this just leaves Loughborough BS with no online access.]

Section62

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81983633#Comment_81983633

When logged in you can able to open new accounts too (they said on the phone you can't, that you could only view accounts)

Yes, I saw that and browsed the range, but didn't try the apply button as there wasn't anything of interest. I'm not sure whether the application will open the account then and there, or if it will be more like the Monmouth process of generating forms a branch will process in due course.

It also looks like there is limited historic data online - if you try and generate a statement using the 'custom' date range and go back to (say) 2023 then without telling you the date is too early it will go ahead and generate a statement saying it is from whatever date you selected, but won't show the actual transactions prior to the earliest date they have online (which seems to be some time in 2024)

There's also a facility to update contact details - including postal address - which I didn't try, but will be useful for those who don't live close to a branch.