Nationwide's further attempts to recoup money

sofa_surfer

From 1st of August :
a)Cash Card accounts will earn flat 0.1% interest;
b)Debit Card Flexes will be tiered as follows:
1500+ ->3.5% (balances over 3000 revert to 0.1% again)
1000+ ->2%
500+ ->0.5%
<500 ->0.1%

olly300

In other words use your current account as a current account and if you want a savings account, then specifically open a savings account.

Milarky

sofa_surfer wrote: »

From 1st of August :
a)Cash Card accounts will earn flat 0.1% interest;
b)Debit Card Flexes will be tiered as follows:
1500+ ->3.5% (balances over 3000 revert to 0.1% again)
1000+ ->2%
500+ ->0.5%
<500 ->0.1%

This refers to 'monthly credit' of course.[strike].(Opps! No it doesn't, it DOES refer to balances! I am sorry to sofa_surfer for not checking first!)[/strike]

Nationwide has also decided to cut the interest rate from 3.75% to 3.5% on balances over £1000 and up to £3000 in the popular FlexAccount. It will also, from August, introduce another tier. Customers with a balance of between £1000 and £1499 will in future earn interest of 2%. The higher rate of 3.5% will not kick in until there is a balance of £1500 in the account.

Sunday Herald.....

..they've told the press... now when are they going to tell customers eh?

Shouldn't Nationwide have waited until Faster Payments was fully operational (and then the money could 'fly' in - but mostly fly OUT - to a better savings account with no loss of banking function etc)?

PLEASE NOTE: This was wrongly printed up in the press quoted. They refer 'balances' to mean 'monthly credit'. That is how I got the impression that Nationwide was introducing a tiered interest rate with different rates within each tier. They are not. They are introducing a 'middle' interest rate tier (2.00%) for the previous 'higher' amount of monthly credit and instituting a 'higher' amount of monthly credit (£1500+) to achieve the current 'higher' rate of interest (3.50%) all w.e.f. 1 August

[Apologies to all]

sofa_surfer

Thanx for the advice, I do that already.I also do write/pay-by cheques. Then I move (instantly) the amount from my e-saver to the Flex account and wait for the recepient to bank the cheque, without knowing when the cheque will come off, which could be over a month on occasions.
Don't get me wrong: I do like Nationwide and happily make use of their plastics abroad/sites operating in other currency; and have a range of savings products with them. But perhaps they aren't really that different...

Milarky

sofa_surfer wrote: »

Don't get me wrong: I do like Nationwide and happily make use of their plastics abroad/sites operating in other currency; and have a range of savings products with them. But perhaps they aren't really that different...

One good thing with Nationwide, they 'reserve' an authorised overdraft limit based on who your conduct the account (etc) If you check what your reserve is now, you may be pleasantly surprised and can ask them raise to this limit just in few days. Then (it's up to you but) as long as you are disciplined enough to check the account regularly, you can use the size of your overdraft as a buffer for all outgoing payments and simply move monies to cover the outgoing payments on the day they leave the account - i.e. run a 'nil' balance - and still not be charged.

Rafter

Only paying 2% on £1000 balance and charging about 6% on mortgages means that nationwide earn about £40 a year on the difference.

£40 for a fully featured bank account, internet site, branches, no charges for overseas use doesn't seem like a big price to pay - about 11p a day?

Given it costs a bank about 50p for every ATM cash withdrawl by the time they have paid for systems, machines, security, someone to fill them up etc looks like a bargain to me!

Because Nationwide are a building society they are not trying to make profits to give to shareholders because they don't have any. Any profits are re-invested in the business and better rates or services for members.

Thank goodness they are there offering the perks they do, otherwise the banks could get away with more charges than they do already. It is only the fear of customes transferring to the likes of nationwide that keeps things in check!

R.

sdooley

The building societies should keep the banks honest. Unfortunately there are so few building societies that, unlike in the last big credit crunch of the 1970s, they can't gang up together to protect their members (somewhat) from the vagaries of the markets...

Phil

So there's no point keeping more than £3000 in there then?

KTF

Phil wrote: »

So there's no point keeping more than £3000 in there then?

Why would you want to do that with a current account anyway?

KTF

sofa_surfer wrote: »

I wasn't aware that if (for example) - someone banks my cheque, I see the transaction on my online banking (putting me in Debit) and immediately move the same amount from my linked e-saver - I won't be charged a penny interest.

I dont know if this is true with other banks but with Nationwide your account has to be in the red for a 24 hour period before you get charged so if you log in at 9am and discover that its (say) -100 as long as its 0 or above by close of business you wont get charged any fee (even if this puts you into an unauthorised overdraft situation).

The last time I checked, Nationwide dont seem to be part of the faster payments scheme otherwise you could get an overdraft then shuffle money to/from a higher interest savings account (assuming it supports faster payments) and always keep a nill balance as suggested above. High risk if you forget to check though :-)

RBS used to do something similar years ago called balanced banking (I think) but that was only between one of their current accounts and one of their savings accounts. Every night it would shuffle money one way or the other depending on the limits you defined to maximise interest.

Essenchill

Milarky wrote: »

[strike]
..they've told the press... now when are they going to tell customers eh?

I think you have to take it that that is them telling the customers! "We can inform you via post, email, instore or press..."