Sort codes and account numbers would change. At the moment Virgin are spread over three different ranges whilst Nationwide are all 07.
I suspect that COVID messed up their plans for a CASS transfer. That said, it would have lost the transaction history unless they did a kind of CASS+ to take over the history.
Ah of course, I always forget about the legacy Northern Rock/Virgin Money current accounts. I’m surprised there were that many of them, of course the number will have dwindled now and I suspect the number of them being actively used as a current account is very small indeed - I almost thing an N&P/M&S Bank/Tesco Bank style ‘we’re closing your account on x date, you might want to switch before’ type deal would probably be best for them, perhaps with a sweetener if the customer chooses to CASS themselves to Nationwide.
The CYBG account base is way too big to do anything like that. And, to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised given more recent communications if the plan isn’t to offer personal current accounts under both brands/licenses (Nationwide and whatever they rebrand the VM operation as), just on a harmonised system ala Lloyds/BOS.
3 Likes
They’re never going to keep Virgin as-is since it’s a bit of a mess with so many legacy banking outfits to be supported. Historically, Nationwide have moved all accounts of places they’ve taken over into their own systems.
I suspect that the thing holding it up will be training the Virgin staff on the Nationwide systems. Once that’s done, I’d say it will move very fast indeed.
Given that branch staff aren’t really involved in credit card operations, Virgin have a separate app (no website) for them, and I gather that the backend processing is done by the same place, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the first move across and done within 12 months.
The credit cards seem like an easy win - I had a card change providers before (egg to Barclaycard), and the balance, earned cashback, and direct debit all transferred over to a roughly equivalent product. I got a new card, with instructions to start using it after a certain date, and to update any CPAs with the new number. I think the only thing missing was historical statements, which were available for a while afterwards on the egg website.
That’s assuming they go down that route and don’t do a John Lewis…
They’ve never taken over a bank. No building society has.
This is the opposite of what Nationwide themselves are saying.
They wouldn’t have paid for 4 years of license payments if they didn’t want that time.
4 Likes
Halifax did a really long time ago (early 20th century). That’s how come decades later they still had what was then their Deposit Cheque Account.
Granted, it is more complicated these days.
Fair cop - my point was more that this is taking over a full-service bank with far more product categories than even they themselves offer; leave alone the building societies they’ve previously taken over (which were pretty much simple savings + mortgage societies).
If they’ve paid for four years, they’ll be hoping to get It done in two or two and a bit. The extra time is to allow for slippage. I suspect we’ll all be surprised at how fast things move once they start.
They’ve paid for 4 years and then a 2 year exit period. They have usage of the Virgin Money brand until the end of September 2030. There’s nothing to stop them taking longer with a rebrand either, if they need to. I imagine that’s when at the very least they’ll want to have rationalised the branch network tho.
They absolutely won’t be hoping to get it done in 2 and a bit years 
What we don’t know yet is how much stuff will remain under the Clydesdale Bank license, and how that remainder will be positioned - it could be a business bank, a ‘no-frills’ style offer even perhaps a digital only business. My expectation is that they’ll want to be running under common infrastructure but some stuff will still be sold separately - a bit like BOS/Lloyds but with combined in branch servicing.
Worth remembering too that if Nationwide plan to bring Clydedale’s current accounts over to their own system without dropping functionality all their competitors have they have some innovations they’ll need to catch up on - digital cheque pay in, Post Office deposits, card details in app etc.
It’s more complicated than that as Virgin is at least three separate banks currently.
I think the credit cards will move first as they appear to be easy to move and are on a separate app anyway.
To merge in the current accounts is going to need something like a CASS+ I think as Virgin still seems to operate as three separate banks. Savings is something they’ve merged in many times before so presumably easy enough for them.
Investments would also be fairly easy as they’d just take those Virgin staff and systems over with it as another tab on the Nationwide.
There’s a bunch of other stuff which looks a bit messy but maybe just needs a change in name over the door.
For sure, but Nationwide seems to have been working away behind the scenes for a while now. They have a contract with the Post Office and used to allow deposits so it might be that they essentially just need to tell the Post Office to re-enable that. I don’t know that many people would be worrying about cheque deposit - I paid in my first in nearly three years the other day.
We will see, but I suspect credit cards will remain with the bank license or sold off, due to the way building societies have to balance loans and deposits compared to banks. It’s possible even that Nationwide member credit cards could move the other way.
Not going to happen. Too many accounts to lose past financial data for. It’ll be a (trio of) system migration(s) rather than an account-by-account change.
Whether they remain aligned to the bank license or are moved to become Nationwide accounts is anyone’s guess.
True, but Virgin Money (and Clydesdale/Yorkshire/B before them) sold themselves as a full service bank (albeit not a very joined up one!). It might make little sense to move these over.
Remember if there is to be a bank asset retained that bank will still need to make sure it’s adequately funded in and of itself. I think you might end up being surprised how much stuff stays where it is in terms of license.
I’ve opened a Nationwide Member Credit Card account over the weekend. It’s still not showing in my banking app. Anyone have any experiences with this, or know how long it usually takes to get set up online? Granted, it does say 7-10 days for the card to be delivered (including sending the card pin seperately).
It’s not an issue and I have time to wait (don’t need to use the credit card imminently), but just wondering if there is anyone that has dealt with the credit side of Nationwide before? I haven’t scoured the entire forum, so I’m sorry in advance if this has been mentioned/discussed previously.
It won’t show for about five days
3 Likes
It takes a good while for things to become operational. You can’t use the card until it turns up (should be soon for you). It should start appearing in the app for you quite soon too, though you’ll not be able to use It until the card arrives.
1 Like
On a related note, the Virgin Everyday Cashback card gives the same free overseas use but also gives you 0.25% cashback. This is what the Nationwide used to offer so when the product mergers start, I wonder if the 0.25% will be on offer on the existing Nationwide card?
Nationwide’s Select credit card originally offered 0.50% when it was first launched. It was worth using in those days. It was later reduced to 0.25% and then removed altogether.
1 Like
Can’t see it going back to 0.5%, but the question is whether they will level up to Virgin’s 0.25% or level down to zero? Either way, I’m planning on switching my current Nationwide spending over to Virgin when the card turns up.
Also wondering if they’ll add the credit limits of the two cards when the merger of the credit card operation happens?
2 Likes
I currently have a Virgin Money Credit Card and was thinking of closing it down, but don’t know if I should keep it open just to see what the merger will bring 