Nationwide

Nationwide

Nationwide is a British building society and mutual financial institution. Headquartered in Swindon, it has additional offices in Glasgow, Bournemouth, Northampton and London. Formed by more than 100 mergers, Nationwide has more than 15 million members and is the largest building society in the world.

Reviews Rating
40%
Review Score
This figure is an average of the reviews score, taken from customer reviews and the overall rating of the bank.
55%
BankRank® Score
This figure is the average of the bank’s total sentiment score and the review scores.
Disclaimer
While we are independent, we might receive commission if you choose to click on certain links on our website.
Matt Crabtree
Senior Editor
Matt Crabtree
Matt Crabtree is a publisher at CompareBanks. He specialises in personal finance and is passionate about helping consumers make informed decisions about their money.
Read More

Overview

First Glance

Nationwide is a British building society and mutual financial institution. Headquartered in Swindon, it has additional offices in Glasgow, Bournemouth, Northampton and London. Formed by more than 100 mergers, Nationwide has more than 15 million members and is the largest building society in the world.

Features

Contact Info

About Nationwide

Nationwide is a British building society and mutual financial institution. Headquartered in Swindon, it has additional offices in Glasgow, Bournemouth, Northampton and London. Formed by more than 100 mergers, Nationwide has more than 15 million members and is the largest building society in the world.

What is now Nationwide began life in the nineteenth century, with the Northampton Town & County Freehold Land Society and the Southern Co-operative Permanent Building Society. The Co-operative Permanent changed its name to Nationwide Building Society in 1970, merging with Anglia Building Society in 1987. The new company was initially known as Nationwide Anglia Building Society but changed to simply Nationwide in 1992.

After the financial crisis of 2008, Nationwide acted to protect the mutual financial sector and acquired several smaller building societies.

Nationwide is committed to maintaining its mutual status and was by far the biggest British building society that didn’t convert to bank status in the wave of demutualisations of the late 1980s. Subsequent proposals to change to full bank status have not been actioned.

Nationwide Products and Services

Nationwide business customers can choose from a range of savings accounts with strong interest rates. These include notice accounts, fixed-rate accounts and instant access accounts.

These accounts are designed for SMEs with no more than 250 employees and a turnover of less than £45million. A range of corporate banking accounts are available for larger companies.

Nationwide members who have a current account, savings account or mortgage get a better rate of interest when taking out a loan (although loans are available to non-members as well). Customers must earn at least £700 a month. Once agreed, funds can be cleared into the borrowers’ account within two hours.

Nationwide also offers a range of current and savings accounts, cash ISAs and Junior ISAs.

Security at Nationwide

Nationwide is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority. Deposits of up to £85,000 are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

Nationwide Contact Details

Nationwide Building Society
Nationwide House
Pipers Way
Swindon
SN38 1NW

Telephone: 0800 302011

Have a question about Nationwide?

Find answers in Q&As and ask your question

HI, I live in Camden, London NW1 and I need to find my nearest cash deposit atm that is available to use while branches are closed. Can u please advise me, Thanking you in advance, Kind regards, Rachel Cressey — Rachel Cressey

I want to switch from santander to nationwide — Vernon

Nationwide Reviews

Louise Finch
November 28, 2022

“Matthew davies member executive threatens a vunerable”

Matthew davies member executive threatens a vunerable adult with account closure after complaint issued as lost £1600 and nationwide ceo does nothing on dispute claim, matthew sends reply with threats in, dont trust or use this bank they do nothing to help me losing 1600

7 persons found this helpful
helen payne
November 28, 2022

“Nationwide induced a traumatic experience in me when they froze my accounts for over a month”

Nationwide induced a traumatic experience in me when they froze my accounts for over a month. They had the gall to say it was for my own protection, yet i had a legitimate builder completing an annex in my garden to whom i owed large sums for their work. I could not pay the contractors nor did i have funds for my everyday living expenses. Phone contact was mostly waiting for 1-2 hours for over 20 calls, in over 7 visits to branch (I had to give over 3 hours of my precious time each visit squeezed in between work commitments) it was no quicker as the staff could not access the fraud squad on the phone either. Although i sent in the information Nationwide requested on the day of the freeze they failed to confirm receipt of my emails (admitting they had ‘lost' them). There was no empathy, support or understanding of my situation by staff. In fact adding insult to injury they lied about my using an expletive once in branch which i most certainly did not. This sort of malicious behaviour is unacceptable and probably as a result of my refusal to complete their survey for feedback. Their apology was unconvincing and the poultry monetary compensation was unrepresentative of the traumatic experience i went through due to their actions alone. i would strongly advise anyone banking with the Nationwide to reconsider as they can freeze your account without reason at any time with no end date in sight. Of course, the large sums in the accounts can be used readily by bankers to make more money, a cynic would view this as a good enough reason to freeze accounts excusing their actions as protecting you the customer from some scammer. As if i would not know if i was being scammed! We went through a rigorous process of selecting the builder and contractors all of whom are legitimate, yet the Nationwide thought they knew better, how arrogant of them! The legislation on money laundering needs revisiting. It is not fit for purpose since the banks appear to be using it for their own interests and it inadvertently put the so called ‘victim' into a victim position with the bank, preventing them for from functioning and getting on with their life. DO NOT BANK WITH THE NATIONWIDE.

10 persons found this helpful
SCOTT PARKINSON
August 6, 2022

“I have banked with Nationwide for about 15 years and a mortgage with them for nearly 25 years”

I have banked with Nationwide for about 15 years and a mortgage with them for nearly 25 years. If I could use one word to describe my experience with them, it would be painless. They do everything well and keep their products and services simple and easy to use.

4 persons found this helpful
John Tuson
July 23, 2022

“Use to rate nationwide highly and recommend them. But I changed jobs, become self employed and now treated like a criminal”

Use to rate nationwide highly and recommend them. But I changed jobs, become self employed and now treated like a criminal. They gave me couple days notice froze my accounts kept my money and paid no direct debits as I'm paying cash into my account, recon I'm some sort of major drug dealer as I paid in £6000 over 5 months. Now just sitting on my account no answers after 7 days after I filled there forms in asking questions like who's eBay(asked 8 times) and my connection to them as to why I paid money to them. Totally do not care and when I said I want to complain I said ok they ring me back within 5 days. Day 6 no call. Just told to wait while they review. But nothing happens. Shocking bunch of arrogant fools. I understand they have a duty to check for drug money ect but there so s###e at there job they could not catch a cold.

11 persons found this helpful
Load More

Nationwide Accounts

FlexAccount
FlexAccount
Personal
Monthly Fee
0%
Interest Rate
Yes
Overdraft
Interest rates 39.9% a year compounded (variable)
Overdraft Rate
Instant ISA Saver
Instant ISA Saver
Personal, Savings
Monthly Fee
0.01%, 0.03%, 0.05%
Interest Rate
Overdraft
Overdraft Rate
FlexStudent
FlexStudent
Personal
Monthly Fee
1%
Interest Rate
Yes
Overdraft
0%
Overdraft Rate
FlexOne
FlexOne
Personal
Monthly Fee
1%
Interest Rate
No
Overdraft
Overdraft Rate
FlexBasic
FlexBasic
Personal
Monthly Fee
0%
Interest Rate
No
Overdraft
Overdraft Rate
Future Saver
Future Saver
Personal, Savings
Monthly Fee
1.00% AER/gross a year (Variable) if you have a main current account with us. 0.50% AER/gross a year (Variable) for all other customers.
Interest Rate
Overdraft
Overdraft Rate
Load More