One of the safest places you can put your money, shame about the interest paid (Nationwide Building Society)

Member Name: jbennett

Product:	Nationwide Building Society
Date:	01/12/08 (304 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Safe and secure, great online banking, they know what they're doing

Disadvantages: Interest is not the greatest so if you're a saver you might want to lose elsewhere

I have several accounts with Nationwide and have never used any other bank or building society to look after my money since the day I was born.

My experience with their customer support in my local town is not great as the building they operate within is tiny and they are always under resourced, however this doesn't bother me as their online banking service is fantastic and enables me to perform all my transactions at the comfort of my PC at home.

I have first hand experience with other online banking systems as my friends and family have let me look at theirs (which include Natwest and Virgin) and this comparison confirms to me that the Nationwide provide a far superior online banking experience.

I currently use their flex account (0% interest as of today) and the discontinued Bonus Saver account (2.40% interest as of today) which gives an indication of how much they pay out in interest. I agree with the flex account interest as it's not a place I keep my money but the Bonus Saver is a little disappointing as it stores my house deposit funds and I was hoping to gain more interest than this.Some accounts they have do offer about 4% but i'm sure there are better accounts out there for the savers amongst us. Maybe I should look elsewhere but I seem to feel content to stay put, silly me.

I know the interest they pay on their accounts is pretty dreadful but I'm so used to them now that I just feel scared to move and feel like it's too much hassle, also in my opinion with the current financial climate I feel they provide one of the safest places to store money as they don't seem to have any problems with their finance, so for this reason alone I have a lot of confidence in their operations and will gladly stay with them.

On the positive side they are willing to offer me about another 10k for a mortgage than other providers so this could prove to be useful when I want to move out of the parents home in a year, and their financial advisor is top class and has really given me and my girlfriend a sense of direction for the future.

The only other thing I can think of is the bank charges which really irritates me. They once charged me £30 for going overdrawn which really shocked me as it was only for about 24 hours. I contacted them and they refunded my money very promptly, within another 24 hours or so, but I just don't feel this is right and I was feeling a little upset by this.

I'm sure over the next few months we will see who the winners and losers are but as it stands I will keep my money in the safe house known as Nationwide.

Summary: Great building society, one to consider unless you are a saver as interest rates could be improved