NOT as good as it used to be (Nationwide Building Society ISA)

Member Name: smartferret

Product:	Nationwide Building Society ISA
Date:	07/04/09 (146 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Mutual Building Society with good track record so far

Disadvantages: Terrible rate on the so-called loyalty ISA

It is all very different in April 2009. The Nationwide Members' ISA Bond pays one of the WORST rates of any ISA product at the start of the tax year 2009/2010 (a derisory 0.75% "tax free") and I will certainly not be contributing again to mine. Nationwide are often saying how their rates are 'competitive' compared to other savings accounts but the Nationwide Members' ISA Bond is a special account that is supposed to reward the LOYALTY of Nationwide's members of over 3 years standing and in my opinion the Nationwide Board has chosen to deliberately side-line their loyal members in order to finance more attractive offers to new investors. Thankfully the Internet allows us all to shop around when choosing where to put our money and I would certainly recommend shopping around rather than investing in one of these. I would agree with one point made by Nationwide and that is that some other institutions pull customers in with attractive rates that plummet once enough punters have been hooked; however in this case I feel that this is similar to what Nationwide are doing themselves, since they appear to offer better ISA rates on their other ISA products than they do on the Members' Isa Bond. You don't need to go far to find a better and secure rate: At the time of writing, Government backed Northern Rock offers 2% APR on its E-Saver account; once tax is deducted you still end up with more than with the Nationwide "Tax free" version.

Summary: An insult to Nationwide's loyal members