My mum has been having terrible issues with the NatWest online banking. At one point, it had an expired SSL (!) and then it essentially deleted her account. It also only allows her to set up standing orders to go out on a Friday and when CAS transferred her existing standing orders over, it didn’t add the details to the payee section - so you couldn’t manually send money to the recipient of the standing order as they had no separate entry in the payee section, nor could you re-add them as they had an existing standing order!
Everything! They split from lloydsTSB and just decided to send my business banking to TSB. The fees are extortion and it takes it so long to show transactions that you go over your limit and get charged when they finally catch up.
Interesting topic this one. I’d been with Natwest since I was 11 (joined for the frankly brilliant freebie of the ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ soundtrack on CD… )
Plenty of annoyances - having to go into a branch for stuff, so much security (though advent of TouchID helped), and who can forget the bonkers calculator thing. However, they did have some good stuff - the ‘forgot your card’ cash withdrawal ability, the change counting machines in branch… As often happens I ended up taking loans and credit cards with them over the years too.
The thing that made me leave for good after 19 years, was the service. Eventually, something did go wrong - I became the victim of card fraud. Sorting the whole debacle was so painful and frustrating, I had to go. I moved to First Direct partly for their service reputation and partly for the £200 I got to move, and the linked 5% saver.
Still though, as much as they’re better - setting up and remembering all of the security was a headache at first. They are super fast and helpful on the phone, but I’d rather not phone at all. Having to phone to set up Apple Pay too - bleurgh. Still have the same annoyances with available balance vs. transactions showing - Especially after the card fraud, I realised how important Monzo’s instant feedback and transactions is to me.
First Direct would not allow me to set up Apple Pay on with their account on my iPhone because I was in Sweden, their reason being that applications from overseas are a potential fraud risk.
…but you’ve just verified my identity with security questions and your new-fangled voice ID technology on the phone, so does it really matter that I’m in Sweden?
You see, this is the feature of legacy banks I hate most. They have to stick to the script and it has to be done this particular way - no ifs no buts. If you’re unable to get home because your card is blocked and the “system” won’t unblock it…that’s tough cookies.
It’s their inability to provide real-time info to help you track and control spending I dislike. You need to wait 3-4 days then “spot” a payment suddenly popping up on your account feed, buried down the list that has only today been added and deducted from your balance but was actually made days ago.
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