Excellent building society (Nationwide Building Society)

Member Name: AbsintheFairy

Product:	Nationwide Building Society
Date:	07/11/09 (33 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Friendly staff, best deals on getting money out abroad

Disadvantages: No student account!

I opened a Nationwide FlexAccount back in 2006, as I was going to be living in Russia for a few months, and wanted to be able to get money out abroad without paying fees or commission!

When I opened the account I signed up to internet banking and opened an e-savings account. This meant that if I had any money in the account I wasn't using, I could transfer it into e-savings and earn a little bit of interest until I needed it, when I could transfer it back.

I also applied for a credit card (only for use in emergencies), but didn't bother asking for an overdraft.

I've never used this as my main account, but keep it chiefly for using abroad. I have never had any problems - I have used it in Russia, South Korea and various places in Europe and never paid any extra charges/commission, and have never had my card mistakenly blocked (as I have heard can happen with some debit/credit cards!).

Though Nationwide still don't charge commission, recently they decided to pass on the Visa charge. From the website: "We do, however, pass on any fee we incur from our card scheme providers for processing transactions in certain currencies (generally those outside of the European Economic Area and Turkey and Israel) other than sterling.

The fee is currently 1.00% and it will be included in the sterling amount shown on your statement."

However, there is still no charge in Europe, and the charge for other foreign transactions is still better than any other debit card!

I've only used the credit card once (to make sure they sent me another one when it was about to run out!) but it was very easy to pay it off via online banking.

The customer service at Nationwide is brilliant - the staff are always very friendly and helpful. I once went for a job interview at my local branch: I didn't get the job, but remember that all the interview questions were about achieving the highest levels of customer service - this is compared to another interview I had at a high street bank, where I was asked tons of questions about maximising sales! This has made me very happy to be a Nationwide customer!

At this current moment I still don't use this account as my main account (and I heard Nationwide has started to crack down on this lately!) but may well be persuaded to in the future, once my student/graduate account runs out (Nationwide don't offer a student account unfortunately!).

Summary: Recommended