Can you sign in and view your mortgage with them? When it was Platform I never found out if it was possible, hoped when it changed to Co-op it might but still never found out lol.
I use Smile for the mortgage/bills and can’t see the Co-op Mortgage in that app. Shortly after we took out the mortgage I opened a Co-op Savings account and the mortgage can be viewed in that app. You can only see the balance though, no transactions.
I don’t remember the last time I logged in to the Co-op website so I don’t know if you can see the mortgage in there, but I presume you would be able to if you can in the app.
1 Like
Currently attempting the Switch & Stay offer.
Tbf it’s been pretty painless (albeit slow account opening) so far without having my account blocked or having to speak to CS!
When I met the criteria for the £75 I received an email the next day and the payment was issued.
I’ve met the criteria for the £25 for my first month but haven’t recieved an email confirming I have done so like I did for the £75, is that normal or do I need to double check?
I’m on the earlier version of that (starting last June). After the £75 turned up in July, it was September before the first of the £15 arrived i.e. there’s a month of a gap before the regular payments start to arrive.
Maybe it should read ‘final year, better money habits’ seeing as they’ll be the Coventry at some point.
3 Likes
So I had a thought after seeing the brand mentioned on another thread. What’s going to happen to smile.co.uk? Will they get a refresh, will they be shut down, will they remain the same?
I can’t see the Coventry Building Society having any use for the Smile brand, so it will probably be left to die a lingering death, until it’s put out of its misery.
1 Like
Our joint account is with Smile, because 20 years ago there were a few perks (a Visa card I think, something like that!) over a Co-op one. But for a while now there has seen very little difference and very little point in them having both brands.
1 Like
There’s no real difference now as for some years you’ve been able to operate your Smile account from a CoOp branch. Minor differences in the interest rates.
1 Like
Smile was definitely a ‘product of it’s time’ in that it gave ‘traditional’ banks an option to experiment with Internet banking, but without having to go ‘all in’ with it on their main brand. The same with Cahoot when that was launched by Abbey National and IF from I think at the time Halifax?.
Now that all banks are expected to support internet, and mobile app, banking - it’s lost it’s USP.
Although, come to think of it, those were all (at the time) ‘members owned’ organisations, so maybe there was an extra benefit of having a sub-brand like this as well? (can’t remember if Smile, Cahoot or IF customers got the same members rights at Co-op, Abbey National and Halifax customers?).
Smile could be an option for Coventry BS to start to offer current accounts again though - just reclaim and refresh the brand and have that as their current account branding?
I went with a Smile, rather than the Co-op’s main bank because at the time Smile offered overdrafts and a full featured VISA card where the Co-op didn’t.
Smile, Cahoot, and IF, have never been part of member-owned organisations.
The Cooperative Bank has been operating as a limited company since 1971. It was ultimately owned by the Cooperative Group, but that didn’t make its customers members of the Coop. Smile was created in 1999.
Abbey National converted from a building society to a bank in 1989, and Halifax converted in 1997. Cahoot and IF were both set up in 2000.
1 Like
Always a shame IMO that NatWest never bought Abbey as they could have been renamed Westminster Abbey Bank (Bank added to differentiate from the Cathedral).
6 Likes
Smile definitely did as if you then subsequently joined the Co-op as a member, you received the Divi because of your dealings with Smile and had voting rights.
Of course it was a extra step to join the Co-op as a member as customers wasn’t made members automatically but once joined you received a share in the profits like every other customer that did.
I left Smile only last month as they were stale* and had absolutely nothing new to offer and their increasingly long downtime was getting on my last nerve.
*They had been for the longest time but I was there because I couldn’t be bothered to jump ship.
I think ditching the divi was a shooting in the foot in their part. Strangely, you can still get divi on the members credit card issued by the coop bank, but don’t get it in any other way now.
1 Like
Yeah they now do a money off type thing in their stores, does it really help in their overly expensive shops is a subject worth talking about. No is my response to that. However it makes it look like they’re trying to help which is probably the main point.
Westminster Abbey isn’t a cathedral though - you must be thinking of Westminster Cathedral 
Good point. It’s an Abbey.
One might even see it as the national abbey
(Sorry)
2 Likes