My nationwide flex direct account and savings has shown up. Showing 2 per cent for savings account. The app seems so minimal for what you can do.
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The app does what I need it to do.
It’s still weird not having a Notes section though, like Monzo, Starling, and Chase.
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I’m afraid you’re just going to have to look past the app and accept that it is what it is. It wouldn’t in any way be fair to try and compare it against the likes of Starling or other app only based banks because of the legacy systems Nationwide operate.
Nationwide are at the end of the day, a 20th Century institution that like so many others born in the last Century (or indeed in the 2 centuries previous) struggle to move on in one form or another. They don’t often update their App because their ancient tech probably prevents them from doing so.
I’ve been a Nationwide customer for or over 15 years and the joint account my Wife and I hold, is our main household payments account. We fund the account monthly via Standing Orders and the account just does everything we need it to do with virtually zero interaction from us. We have no need to contact Nationwide for anything on a year by year basis. We don’t use their branch Network either. What Nationwide does give us for £13 a month though, is breakdown cover on our vehicles and most importantly, worldwide travel insurance which as one gets older, does become more expensive with many insurers.
Receive your £200 and spend it on something useful. 
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My Coop bank operates a bit like this. The mortgage goes out from a joint space and that’s that. We did try a joint fintech for this account but found it didn’t do the basics.
The account allowed for a large, mission critical transfer, conducted remotely, where other high street banks would have forced us in the branch for that amount. I didn’t want to put that through my preferred fintech account, rightly or wrongly. It’s also a useful cash depository.
I sometimes think, is having this account in the infrastructure the opposite of “fintech” - but then you realise it’s fulfilling a limited but predetermined function. I’ve also received £150 from referrals and have £150 left which I can max out before (if I feel like it) moving the account and it’s one standing order along.
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Thanks appreciate that just seems limited compared to like Lloyd’s my doner account. I remember years ago i am sure when I was with nationwide they one of the first mobile banking with WAP and a apple watch app.
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Historically, a lot of banks have used a different provider for credit cards than debit. Quite often, until recently, almost all debit cards were Visa but almost all credit cards were Mastercard.
That’s except for the few banks that seem to be totally committed to Visa across the board: Co-operative Bank (including Smile); Nationwide Building Society and First Direct (although their debit card has now switched to Mastercard) all do or did use Visa for all their cards.
Edit: I see now that this has already been explained, I initially replied before reading all the newest messages in the thread. Sorry.
I agree with you. After all, any totally long-term cross-bank deal would most likely have included First Direct and all subsidiaries anyway (such as NatWest Group’s cross-brand deal with Mastercard to move all their debit cards) so I doubt it’s that. I suspect a testing approach with First Direct too - after all, they did say that would be adding back HSBC in-branch automated machine functionality but they haven’t done so yet; it will probably happen after all that is sorted out, which I suspect is very technically complex.
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Well my CASS from First Direct to Nationwide completed yesterday and Nationwide credited my account this morning with £200. I’ve been a Nationwide customer for 16 years, so I’m well used to their app. I never use their branch network either.
I’ve had just one letter of communication from First Direct acknowledging the switch and I no longer have any form of access to the FD app.
I found FD to be a completely unimpressive banking experience. I thought the app was boring too. At the end of the day however, they gave me £150 for absolutely nothing and that paid for some dental treatment.
I might now actually seek out another sacrificial account for CASS purposes. I’ve never had a Metro account, so I might open one up and give it up for the next free wodge of cash.
That’s the best you can do with a Metro account. I have a joint current account there that is no longer in use
Metro have had a switching bonus in the past. IIRC it involved a referral and debit card payments and it was less than £100, maybe £50, so I didn’t bother.
To be fair, I wouldn’t even consider switching to Metro, unless of course they stumped up at least £150 to do so. Happy however just to open an account with them to switch out to Lloyds for instance. I’ve burned my bridges with the Natwest/RBS group.
I would also point out, all of the switches I’ve done, have had a negligible impact on my credit score.
Terms of future offers might preclude recent holders of accounts though, that’s why I’d be less inclined to open a brand new account as a brand new customer anywhere unless there was an incentive to do so.
If ever I’m short of a donor I tend to open another account with a bank I do business with regardless - Lloyds and Halifax are particularly good for this as they don’t tend to run a hard credit search for existing customers and the process is pretty simple.
That’s cool, but remember you don’t have a single credit score, and the “credit score” which certain places present you are not seen by anyone else, so you can ignore them.
Some lenders don’t seem to care about hard searches, but others definitely do.
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Oh yes, I’m perfectly aware of the difference in the way the credit reference agencies can differ on scoring. My Equifax and Clearscore numbers are world’s apart.
Thankfully I’m in a position where I don’t make a habit of taking out loans or overdrafts. I do use PayPal interest free occasionally, indeed it was setting up a PayPal direct debit that allowed me to reap the £200 from Nationwide, that along with swapping another d/d from another bank.