The largest building society in the UK has recently drawn fire for manipulating an interest rate clause in order to deprive savers closing their accounts of as much as a month’s worth of accrued interest.
Personal and business bank account holders with Nationwide have been appalled by the dirty tricks played on them regarding the building society’s online banking product, known as the MySave Online Plus saver. This flies in the face of Nationwide’s newest television advert campaign which ironically states the building society ‘is on your side.’
The deception originates from Nationwide dropping its 3.12 per cent interest rate on the account in question to only 0.1 per cent for the month an account is closed. This means that if a saver took out an account on September 1 and then closed it on October 31, they would only earn a paltry 0.1 per cent return for the entire month of October, or only 8p per every £1,000 in the month the account is closed.
The rule is buried deep in small print on the Nationwide website in the ‘legal information’ section, even though customers with MySave accounts are entitled to one withdrawal without penalties every 12 months. When confronted with the issue, Nationwide quickly backpedaled, stating it would make the closing rate in a highly visible location when a customer is completing their application online for the MySave account.
A spokesman for the building society confirmed that every saver that closes their account is hit by the interest rate drop whether or not they’ve availed themselves of their one yearly withdrawal. The spokesman did say that if a saver either withdraws all but £1 from the account without closing it, or leaves the cash in the account until the end of the account month, they won’t lose any significant interest.