They’ve bought a provider with current accounts. The provider has a crap platform, but still a better one than Coventry had.
I’m not sure why closing their current account (ish) offer would now be a source of regret for them, it would have added a tiny amount of customers relative to the amount they’re acquiring.
Bit dramatic, they’re reporting their best ever results with them no?
I don’t understand your logic. They have hundreds of branches, second only to Nationwide among building societies. They also have more agencies than anyone else.
With an ATM card, you could access cash directly without ever visiting a branch/branch. Without an ATM card offer, the only way to get that cash is now to use one of those branches. How does that make them more of an internet bank?
Same for the N&P offer, since the only branch access was via N&P, unless you lived in East Anglia you were using that via internet banking… removing that offer made them more of a traditional bricks and mortar ‘savings and mortgages’ building society, not more of an internet bank, surely?
Cumberland’s offer is not great and their market share (even in Cumberland) is tiny, they’d probably be just as good pulling the mothballs off N&P’s offer and/or starting again.
TSB would be a great target if they can afford it; have they got a spare 4 or 5 bn for them tho?
YBS have been much better about handing out handing out eyecatching interest rates than Nationwide; perhaps their surplus isn’t quite in the ‘bank buying’ territory.
Yes, but with an awful lot of restrictions to get those high rates. Pure internet places offer similar rates without the restrictions.
If you have a nearby branch, it’s brick & mortar. For those of us in areas where they closed all their branches and agencies, it’s essentially an internet outfit. In those areas it doesn’t match what you can get from a pure online place.
Still not sure I follow your logic. A card you can use in an ATM for withdrawals doesn’t make something not an internet/digital bank - unless you’re including Monzo, Starling, Kroo, First Direct, Smile…
I know what you’re saying but, for me, removing ATM access was a major league downgrade. Net effect is that I compare them against pure internet places. And they have consistently lost.
Basically the difference is that previously I could just lift the money out right away if I needed it, now I can’t and would have to transfer it somewhere else first. In practice, I’ve made the transfer and largely don’t use them.
I wonder how many other things are still there behind the scenes from the Coventry First days? All but the debit card and cheque writing from this is still available on the Moneymanager accounts as far as I can see.
They’re hardly going to use much legacy stuff from the Coventry First days.
They’ll either revamp the Co-ops creaking services or a Banking as a Service (BaaS) type setup.
At present, the main functions from the Coventry First days are still there on the website and, to a lesser extent, on the current app. So, I can manage DDs, SOs and bill payments on my Moneymanager account (that’s what Coventry First became).
Comparing the CoOp and Coventry apps, there’s not that much difference in terms of functionality. In a number of ways, the Coventry seems more advanced e.g. I can open an account in minutes in the Coventry app Vs days with the CoOp.
Also worth noting that the Coventry app has been getting a constant stream of updates Vs hardly any from the CoOp lately. And, the Coventry only stopped doing debit cards fairly recently so I’m guessing that the code is still there behind the scenes.
Coop is a full clearing bank with a full portfolio of products.
Coventry is only a mid-sized building society that relies on HSBC to perform much of it’s transactional banking functionality. There simply isn’t much to retain.
Whilst I expect that Coventry will take their payment processing in house, that wouldn’t preclude them from using the much more dependable Coventry platform to do that processing.
As noted, the Coventry is way bigger than the CoOp, which is why they’re able to buy the CoOp rather than the other way round.
I will eat my hat if Coventry BS reheat their mostly dead long-neglected pseudo Current Account offer and use that as the base for their acquired current accounts moving forward.
Never mind the rest of everything Co-op Bank does (aside from savings and mortgages).
We’ll see. My money would be on them upgrading the app and website and running with that. The CoOp hasn’t changed much in many years and I suspect that even the old Coventry First website is newer. As I’ve said, the Coventry app is way more dependable than the CoOp has been in recent years and that’s why I think they’ll move in that direction for current and savings account processing. I agree that there’s more to the CoOp than that though.
Thing is Moneymanager remains fully functional in terms of DD, SO and bill payments. What stopped a couple of years back were the debit cards.
Even if it is fit for purpose for all future Current Accounts, Savings and Mortgages (and I think that’s pretty optimistic!) what about Credit Cards, Loans, investments, business stuff, misc finance etc etc
It’s not often I agree with @Oberoth but I reckon they’re right about this; it’ll most likely be a new platform entirely (PaaS would make sense) or they’ll need to play catch up with the Co-op Bank’s decaying system.
I wouldn’t be so sure about BaaS as their choice mainly because the Coventry app development seems to be moving along at a fair rate.
Outside current and savings accounts, it’s a different matter. Mortgages I could see merging in some form, but possibly using the CoOp platform as I get the impression that it’s more sophisticated than Coventry.
The CoOp stopped doing investments several years ago.
I think Coventry issued credit cards some years back but I don’t think there was ever online access so that would be new.
Loans would be new.
Don’t forget that the CoOp is a fairly simple bank and doesn’t have the complexity of RBS etc. Through the app they only have current accounts, savings accounts, loans, credit cards, mortgages, business accounts, and insurance.
You’re conflating ‘app’ and ‘systems’. A feature packed app will need more backend stuff to service it, but it doesn’t follow that an app with a more limited feature set will have a very simple system behind it - especially when that backend is something that dates back to the 70s/80s (weren’t the Co-op Bank one of the first to fully computerise?) and powers an entire full service bank.
While the Co-op Bank’s app might seem pretty simple, their backend will by neccessity be far more complex than Coventry BS’s.
It might be more simple than RBS but that really isn’t saying much!!
Also, apps are pretty much standalone entities which communicate with a backend via an API. TSB for example launched their non-LBG app before they began their distrous switch to their own backend - so for a period that new app will have been talking to the old backend.
Yes, to an extent. But it’s the pace of change and some of the changes coming out that’s impressive. For example, opening an account is pretty much instant and that requires backend integration. On the CoOp you’re talking days to do it.
Whatever it is, I get the impression that their dev teams are really beavering away in the background and that’s why it wouldn’t surprise me if parts of the new current account functionality started to appear within a few months.
You’re not wrong, but it’s different orders of magnitude doing stuff like that for a savings + mortgages building society compared to doing it for a full service bank.
I don’t know for sure, but I’d hazard a guess that Co-op Bank’s tech resource spend will absolutely dwarf Coventry’s, despite their painfully slow progress since their near-collapse a decade ago.
I really hope you’re wrong because if you’re right, the CoOp have some seriously rubbish IT people.
Difference might be that Coventry are approaching it like a fintech, and CoOp following a legacy approach.
Whatever it is, everything about it seems to be moving along at a fair clip. Nationwide/Virgin is months behind them already. As I say, it wouldn’t surprise me if the current account features on Moneymanager appeared on the app before Easter.
