Nationwide Force Closing Easy Access Saver (Book) Shares if changed to a Bank

Interritus

Has anyone received a letter advising that from Feb 2025 Nationwide will close their old savings account and change the terms and conditions, so that if Nationwide ever convert to a bank they won't now have to issue shares to their members? 

Section62

Interritus said:

Has anyone received a letter advising that from Feb 2025 Nationwide will close their old savings account and change the terms and conditions, so that if Nationwide ever convert to a bank they won't now have to issue shares to their members? 

No, but I did hear Nationwide are writing to members to say they are converting old-style xxxx/xxxxxxxxx account numbers to ones in the format sort-code + xxxxxxxx.

Is that anything to do with it?

artyboy

Interritus said:

Has anyone received a letter advising that from Feb 2025 Nationwide will close their old savings account and change the terms and conditions, so that if Nationwide ever convert to a bank they won't now have to issue shares to their members? 

Given that us members own the society (although it often doesn't feel that way), I suspect any such attempt to steal it away from us would be blocked fairly swiftly...

phillw

Interritus said:

Has anyone received a letter advising that from Feb 2025 Nationwide will close their old savings account and change the terms and conditions, so that if Nationwide ever convert to a bank they won't now have to issue shares to their members? 

If they close your account and you don't have another account, then when you open one I don't think you qualify for shares.

You can probably open one of their current products that they won't close, so you have continuity.

MDMD

phillw said:

Interritus said:

Has anyone received a letter advising that from Feb 2025 Nationwide will close their old savings account and change the terms and conditions, so that if Nationwide ever convert to a bank they won't now have to issue shares to their members? 

If they close your account and you don't have another account, then when you open one I don't think you qualify for shares.

You can probably open one of their current products that they won't close, so you have continuity.

Assuming the OP has been a member since 2 Nov 1997.

Anyone who joined after that date has already agreed to donate any windfall benefits to charity.

masonic

Interritus said:

Has anyone received a letter advising that from Feb 2025 Nationwide will close their old savings account and change the terms and conditions, so that if Nationwide ever convert to a bank they won't now have to issue shares to their members? 

Did you receive such a letter? If so, what exactly did it say? If not, this seems a weirdly specific question to ask.

granta

I received such a letter (via email) telling me that the Passbook account will have a name change and new terms. I've had this account since before 1996.
What, if anything, does this mean in terms of the shares? 

wmb194

granta said:

I received such a letter (via email) telling me that the Passbook account will have a name change and new terms. I've had this account since before 1996.
What, if anything, does this mean in terms of the shares? 

Nothing. Nationwide's done this before with obsolete accounts where it merges them all together.

EthicsGradient

The "charitable assignment" terms depend on the holder being a member since before Nov 1997, not on holding one account continuously. So unless the letter, or new terms and conditions, explicitly say the change of account would discontinue membership (and I highly doubt they do), then this should not make a difference for any allocation of demutualisation shares.