I have been a NatWest customer for the past 18 years, holding a variety of accounts according to my situation at the time. I've had a standard account, student account, and an advantage gold account which I have held for the past 10 years or so.

Going on my own experience with them and experiences people I know have had with other banks I can honestly say that NatWest is one of the better banks to have an account with. As a student and a young adult commencing work after uni I consistently went over my overdraft limit. NatWest would charge me for going overdrawn but would then contact me and explain why they had done so and would nearly always reverse the administration charge every time.

As an advantage gold customer I have enjoyed several benefits also - cheaper home and car insurance, free travel insurance, a huge overdraft facility for example. These facilities are not just lip service either, as a few years ago I was in a car accident on holiday. My Nat West travel insurance which comes with my advantage gold account covers any family members travelling with an advantage gold customer regardless of whether they themselves hold a NatWest account or not. After sending in the relevant hospital documentation as proof of the accident NatWest paid out for all my family costs which I thought was excellent.

Of course they are not perfect. On a couple of occasions they have made banking errors on my account but each time the relevant staff have been extremely apologetic, bent over backwards to rectify the error and have also credited my account with £50 as compensation.

Family and friends who have had bad experiences with other banks have switched to Nat West as a result and found them much more satisfactory. Loyalty to a customer is very important to most of us but most banks get this terribly wrong with their lack of flexibility and shoddy customer service but this is where I think Nat West gets it right. Their customer services staff are generally very experienced and try to offer a service that we don't often get in this county.