Don't Bank on it

I am not usually one to moan about the banks.

On the whole, I tend to think that banks are fully entitled to their usually large profits and I think they provide a great many services, most of which I think are surprisingly cheap.

I am always surprised that they offer free banking, for example, and free cash withdrawals. These services must cost plenty of money to provide. I also find it hard to be sympathetic to those who complain about being charged for unauthorised overdrafts and so on. What do people expect ?

Anyway, this post is not really about the usual complaints.

It's just going to be a rant about Nationwide Building Society and their online banking product.

We have Nationwide accounts because they provide fee-free overseas transactions. Use their debit or credit card abroad and get the market exchange rate with no loading. This compares to a pretty much uniform 2.75% on the hundreds of other accounts.

Until recently, Nationwide was completely alone in offering this. Even now they are almost entirely out of step with all the rest of the banks.

To us, this is a genuinely useful and money-saving feature.

But, wow, do you have to put up with a lot.

For a start, to open the accounts in the first place was a trial-by-paperwork. Considering I wanted to open internet-only accounts, the amount of paper and the clumsiness of it all was remarkable. It really seems like they never want you to actually be able to get to the end of it.

Eventually it was done and all was fairly smooth until today when I wanted to make a money transfer.

I had placed funds in my flex account expressly in anticipation of making the transfer, and now was the time.

OK.

I had expected to be able to go online, supply the payee details and off you go.

Well, no.

Various ridiculous restrictions applied to regular BACS transfers but anyway I wanted to do an instant CHAPS transfer. Of course I expect to pay a fee for this, possibly to need to call and answer some security questions (although, really, I simply expect to be able to get on with it).

Well, no, the procedure with Nationwide is that you fill in, print and sign the form and MAIL IT to them.

The two reasons you use a CHAPS transfer are (i) security and integrity and (ii) speed. You might use a CHAPS transfer to settle a time-critical and large-value transaction such as completing on a house purchase, for example.

And to meet these objectives? Send the form off in the post ..... 0/10 might be a little generous I feel.

The good news is that I feel our money is probably very safe in Nationwide. The trouble banks got themselves into lately has been mainly to do with doing things too BIG, too FAST and too NEW. Since very little CDO-squared business was done by post with per-day maximum of £10k, I think Nationwide are unlikely to have got too much in harm's way.