Now it seems the sale of RBS branches to Santander has been cancelled: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-19929376 If you remember, the background to this is that RBS Group was forced to sell these branches as a condition of a bail out, with Santander winning the race. Now what I don't get is, why has it all gone the other way, with Santander having way too many High street branches - Aber has 2 within 50 yards of each other. This to me stinks of favouritism and smells a bit fishy to say the least. For all their faults, RBS were a good bank - I had an account there and was very happy there and as soon I was told Crapander were taking over the Swansea branch were I banked, my account was swiftly closed. Santander have a reputation for being chaotic at best, downright rude at worse. This comes from personal experience of dealing with them - I was asked by my mother to pay in a cheque at the now Santander branch (was Abbey) and was told, no, you have to use the machine outside. Now, I've alway paid in cheques over the counter, don't trust those machines, yet for a bank to tell you to get out is not a bank I'd want to touch with any length of bargepole. I can pay in cheques over the counter at HSBC, NatWest, Lloyds, Nationwide and RBS but no, Santander tell you to 'do one'. But don't take my word for it - MoneySaving Expert have many tales of woe over Craptander's vile customer service. My hope is that they'll keep the branches with RBS and forget this whole silly episode.
http://www.ft.com/home/uk "Standandstare" the WOG Bankers are indeed "chaotic at best, downright rude at worse". I have been with NatWest for nearly 40 years and in all that time I have only ever had courtesous service and treatment. They, NatWest, are still BANKERS though.? I held a Store Card admin'd by StandandStare and only one 'phone call to them the WOG Bankers was enough to have me terminating the Store and the card association. Pure devious moneygrabbing sh1te's. IMO Tom
I am sticking with Nationwide Building Society. They reward their loyal customers - more so their long term customers - and have introduced many loyalty accounts over the past year. To get these benefits you need to have a current account with Nationwide and pay in at least £750/month and have a couple of direct debits on that account... 1. Free annual European Travel Insurance. 2. Flexclusive ISA (4.25% with instant access, but no longer available) 3. Flexclusive Regular Saver (6%. Save up to £250/month with instant access) 4. Select Credit card (0.5% cashback on UK spending and commission-free overseas spending) 5. Loyalty Saver Instant access (2.0%-2.6% depending on length of membership) Nationwide also reward their current account holders with better loans and mortgage deals. Nationwide doesn't have a market-leading instant-access savings account but their subsidiary, Derbyshire Building Society, currently has an instant access savings account paying 2.75%, just 0.05% below the top-paying AA savings account. Like any financial institution, take the benefits when they are announced as they could be short-lived. Nationwide will e-mail or send SMS if any new accounts are introduced and also tell you when interest rate changes occur (such as a bonus interest rate ending) if you sign up to their SavingsWatch service. Nationwide may not quite be the best at customer service as say, First Direct, but they are way better than Santander. According to a Which? report last year, Nationwide had the safest on-line banking - just remember to take your card reader with you when you go to the Philippines, to ensure you stay safe on-line! The only real downside for me is that my nearest Nationwide branch is 10 miles away and you cannot pay into a Nationwide account at a Post Office. So, I use a Co-op basic bank account and pay monies into that at the Post Office and then move the monies to Nationwide using on-line banking. I chose the Co-op basic bank account for this as it is relatively easy to add a non-UK citizen to the account as soon as they arrive in the UK.
