We have been loyal members of Nationwide Building Society since 1974.
During this time we have paid off our mortgage and have had a number of savings accounts with them.
My daughter has a savings account and a current account which means she will receive their recent £100 ‘fairer share’ loyalty bonus, but we will not.
Currently, my wife and I have in excess of £100,000 held with Nationwide.
We hold the lump sum in our Flex current account, and move money into our Nationwide Isa account once every tax year – so we have both a current account and a savings account, which we thought was enough to get the £100.
Why did we not qualify for a fairer share payment? V.R, via email.
Nationwide will start to dish £100 Fairer Share payments out to some members from 13 June
Helen Kirrane of This is Money replies: Nationwide announced last month that it would pay another hotly anticipated fairer share payment to eligible members.
It will dish out £385million to 3.85million members from 13 June to 28 June in the form of one-off £100 payments.
The building society giant raked in pre-tax profits of £1.77billon in the year to April. As a result said it would share some of its profits with members who bank and borrow, or who bank and save with it.
But eligible is the key word here. Nationwide set out strict conditions for which members would qualify for the £100 payments.
On a very basic level, to receive the £100 fairer share payment members needed to hold 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 have already paid off your mortgage, so whether you were eligible to receive a loyalty payment is down to you having having the right type of current account and at least £100 in the right type of savings account at the end of the day on 31 March.
But it doesn’t end there. Each of the eligible current accounts also had their own conditions which needed to be met to receive the bonus, so you would have needed to meet these, as well as holding at least £100 in any Nationwide savings account or Isa.
Andrew Hagger, personal finance expert at Money Comms replies: It may be that you didn’t meet Nationwide’s current account criteria.
It seems as if Nationwide is looking to reward loyal customers who use their current account monthly for payments in and out, rather than people who have a dormant account or carry out little activity, as they use a current account with another bank for their day to day banking.
Helen Kirrane replies: You told me that you have a Nationwide Flex current account. You don’t use this for your day-to-day spending, but instead to hold a lump sum of £100,000. Every year, you transfer some money into an Isa in order to get a better interest rate.
The eligible accounts to receive a Fairer Share payment were:
- FlexPlus – This account requires a monthly payment of £13 to hold it.
- FlexOne, FlexStudent or FlexGraduate – These are childrens’ and student accounts, so are not relevant to you.
- FlexAccount, FlexDirect or FlexBasic – These had specific conditions, so this is where you may have been caught out.
The FlexAccount, FlexDirect or FlexBasic current accounts were eligible current accounts for receiving the £100 bonus.
But you needed to have met one of two conditions which were attached to these accounts.
In two out of three months of January 2024, February 2024 and March 2024, you would have needed to receive at least £500 into your current account – and transfers in from other Nationwide accounts you hold do not count.
In addition, you needed to make at least two payments out of your current account.
So you would have needed to receive a total of £1,000 into the current account from a non-Nationwide account, and make no less than four payments across two of those three months.
Nationwide said it wanted to share some of its profits with members after raking in £1.77billion in pre-tax profits – but some customers will be disappointed not to qualify
If you did not meet any of those conditions, you could also have qualified by making at least 10 payments out of the current account in two out of three months of January 2024, February 2024 and March 2024 – for a total of 20 payments out of the account across two months.
These conditions would not have applied to anyone who switched to one of these accounts between 1 January 2024 and 31 March 2024.
If you had one of these current accounts and did not meet either of these conditions, I’m afraid that even if you had multiple Nationwide savings accounts or Isas and a balance of £100,000 in the current account, you would not have been eligible for the £100 fairer share payment – despite being a loyal Nationwide member since 1974.
James Blower, founder of Savings Guru replies: It would appear you reader have missed out because you hold a current account solely to fund your Isa, and are not using this to the criteria specified by Nationwide. This is why you’ve missed out, but your daughter and son in law have received payments.
The only options I see that you have are to complain to Nationwide – either that you think there has been a mistake and you qualify, or that you think that it is unfair and that Nationwide should make an ex-gratia payment to you for your loyalty instead.
The challenges for any bank offering a payment like this is trying to make it fair.
If you give it to every single member then people who miss the cut-off by a day are upset, and those who have been customers for decades are upset that those that have been customers for five minutes get the same payout. There’s no easy way to do this.
Nationwide have chosen to require £100 in a savings account or outstanding on a mortgage as at the end of March, as well as holding one of seven named current accounts with additional criteria on the payments made in and out of those, or the fees paid for using them.
In short, Nationwide are trying to reward customers who are both regular current account holders and savings or mortgage customers.
A spokesman from Nationwide Building Society replies: All our members share in our success and the Nationwide fairer share payment is just one way that we reward members who have chosen us for their everyday banking relationship.
Last year, we returned a record £2.2billion in total value to members. The fairer share payment has set eligibility criteria, requiring both a qualifying current account and qualifying savings account or mortgage.
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