We have been loyal members of Nationwide Building Society since 1974.
During this time we have paid off our mortgage and have had several savings accounts with them.
My daughter has a savings account and a current account, which means she will receive her recent £100 ‘fairer share’ loyalty bonus, but we won’t.
My wife and I currently have over £100,000 in Nationwide.
We keep the lump sum in our Flex current account and transfer money into our Nationwide Isa once each tax year, so we have both a current account and a savings account, which we thought was enough to get the £100.
Why don’t we qualify for fairer stock pay? VR, by email.
Nationwide will start handing out £100 fair share payments to some members from June 13
Helen Kirrane from This is Money responds: Nationwide announced last month that it would pay another long-awaited fairer participation payment to eligible members.
It will distribute £385 million to 3.85 million members from June 13 to 28 in the form of one-off payments of £100.
The building society giant made pre-tax profits of £1.77bn in the year to April. As a result, he said he would share some of his profits with members who bank and take out loans, or who bank and save with them.
But eligible is the key word here. Nationwide set strict conditions under which members would qualify for the £100 payments.
At a very basic level, to receive the £100 fairer share payment, members needed to have a Nationwide current account, as well as one of the following:
- At least £100 in a Nationwide savings account or Isa
- At least £100 left on a Nationwide mortgage as of 31 March 2024
You’ve already paid off your mortgage, so whether you’re eligible for a fidelity payment depends on you having the right type of current account and at least £100 in the right type of savings account by the end of March 31.
But the thing do not ends there. Each of the eligible current accounts also had their own conditions that needed to be met to receive the bonus, so you would have had to meet these as well as have at least £100 in any Nationwide or Isa savings account.
Andrew Hagger, personal finance expert at Money Comms responds: You may not have met Nationwide’s current account criteria.
It seems as if Nationwide is looking to reward loyal customers who use their checking account on a monthly basis for payments and outgoings, rather than people who have a dormant account or do little activity as they use a checking account at another bank for their day-to-day activities. day. day banking.
Helen Kirrane responds: You told me you have a Nationwide Flex checking account. He does not use this for his daily expenses, but to maintain a lump sum of £100,000. Each year you transfer some money into an Isa to get a better interest rate.
The accounts eligible to receive a fair share payment were:
- FlexPlus – This account requires a monthly payment of £13 to maintain.
- FlexOne, FlexStudent or FlexGraduate – These are children’s and student accounts, so they are not relevant to you.
- FlexAccount, FlexDirect or FlexBasic – These had specific conditions, so this is where you may have been caught.
FlexAccount, FlexDirect or FlexBasic current accounts were eligible current accounts to receive the £100 bonus.
But it was necessary to have met one of the two conditions attached to these accounts.
In two out of three months, January 2024, February 2024 and March 2024, you would have needed to receive at least £500 into your current account, and transfers from other Nationwide accounts you have do not count.
In addition, you had to make at least two payments from your checking account.
Therefore, you would have needed to receive a total of £1,000 into your current account from a non-Nationwide account and make no less than four payments in two of those three months.
Nationwide said it wanted to share some of its profits with members after raking in £1.77bn in pre-tax profits, but some customers will be disappointed not to qualify.
If you didn’t meet any of those conditions, you could also have qualified by making at least 10 checking account payments in two of three months: January 2024, February 2024, and March 2024, for a total of 20 account payments. During two months.
These conditions would not have applied to anyone who switched to one of these accounts between January 1, 2024 and March 31, 2024.
If you had one of these current accounts and you didn’t meet any of these conditions, I’m afraid that even if you had several Nationwide savings accounts or Isas and a balance of £100,000 in the current account, you would not have been eligible for a share payment fairer than £100, despite being a loyal Nationwide member since 1974.
James Blower, founder of Savings Guru responds: It would seem that the reader has missed out because he has a current account solely to fund his Isa and is not using it according to the criteria specified by Nationwide. That’s why you missed out, but your daughter and son-in-law received payments.
The only options I see you have are to complain to Nationwide, either you think there’s been a mistake and you qualify, or you think it’s unfair and Nationwide should make you an ex-gratia payment for your loyalty. instead.
The challenge for any bank offering a payment like this is to try to make it fair.
If you give it to each member, people who miss the limit by one day get upset, and those who have been customers for decades get upset because those who have been customers for five minutes get the same payout. There is no easy way to do this.
Nationwide has opted to require £100 in a savings account or outstanding mortgage payments by the end of March, as well as having one of seven named current accounts with additional criteria on payments made into and out of them, or fees paid. for using them.
In short, Nationwide is trying to reward customers who are both regular current account holders and savings or mortgage customers.
A spokesperson for Nationwide Building Society responds: All of our members share in our success and Nationwide’s Fairer Share Pay is just one way we reward members who have chosen us for their everyday banking relationship.
Last year we returned a record total value of £2.2 billion to members. Fair Share Payment has established eligibility criteria, requiring both a qualified checking account, a savings account, or a qualified mortgage.
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