Natwest (natwest.co.uk)

Member Name: Fiver29

Product:	natwest.co.uk
Date:	02/10/09 (27 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See text

Disadvantages: See text

The Natwest online bank is the first online bank I used, and still continue to use.

Signing up is simple, you can either do it in the branch or you can do it online.

You need to set up a password and a pass number, Natwest will then send you a customer number, which is your date of birth, plus four additional digits.

You need to type in this number manually each time you long in, unlike other banking systems where you can ask the computer to remember your customer number. Then on the next screen you need to enter random numbers and digits from your pass number and then your password.

Then you'll be presented with a screen giving you the time and date of your last log in, if your memory is good enough this is another piece of security, so you'll immediately know if the timing is wrong. If you're like me however, you'll skip over it without reading it because you won't be able to remember the exact time anyway.

You can do just about anything here that you can do in branch, except physically pay in money.

Earlier this year the Natwest sent out a little gadget to make their banking more secure. For certain transactions; money transfers, setting up standing orders and such like, they require an extra bit of security provided by this gadget. It's about the size of a calculator and you slide your cashcard/solo/maestro card into it and follow the onscreen instructions to get a security reference number.

Once you've typed this number into the computer, you'll then be allowed to continue. This is all well and good, but if you don't do a lot of transfers then it can be a pain. I had the gadget for about 6 months or more before I first used it. In fact I'd forgotten I'd even received it, so when I was asked to put my card into it I was a bit flummoxed.

I finally remembered what it was after reading the instructions a bit closer, but then I had to find it. What a job that was! So what should have taken a couple of minutes ended up taking about half an hour, and in the meantime my account had been logged out because no movement had been detected, so I had to start from scratch.

Apart from that, everything else is very simple. As all banks have their own security measures I wouldn't recommend moving to Natwest just because their security appears good on the surface, but if you're in the Natwest I can't see any reason not to use it.

Summary: Recommended