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Natwest |
Part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Natwest was actually the product of a merger between two 19th century banks in 1970.
As one of the Big 5 UK banks, it offers mortgages, loans, credit cards, savings and investments as well as business banking. RBOS has a specialist private banking and wealth management company Coutts. It also offers corporate finance and investment banking services. Natwest partners with Direct Line for many life insurance and protection products.
Natwest offer a reward current account, Advantage Blue, where you pay £6.95 and you will receive GreenFlag breakdown cover, or mobile phone insurance, a family and friends railcard, or a 16-25 railcard, single trip european travel insurance, 2 for 1 cinema tickets and more.
Visit Natwest for a quote.
Any problems I have had get resolved quickly. Their life insurance policies are expensive and savings rates quite uncompetitive. The problem with all the banks now is it's all sales sales sales. Not the staffs fault of course, they are under high pressure to sell all the time and that always affects service.
| Posted by Sarah on the 13th January 2010 | ![]() |
| Posted by TS on the 5th January 2010 | ![]() |
| Posted by Toby on the 20th October 2009 | ![]() |
| Posted by Vicky MacLean on the 21st August 2009 | ![]() |
This morning - the Monday - I knew that she would not contact me like she'd said she would. By 9.30 I'd received no call from her, so I called the other local branch myself - and the person I spoke to there was very different, caring and understanding, she promised that she would look into the matter and call me back today. I had my doubts about this - but to my surprise she did call me back, it was about 5 and a half hours later but I suppose the matter had taken some time to look into and sort out. She admitted the bank's error and said she had credited the money back to my account and has ensured that I will not incur any charges - she said that the standing order that had been paid out (which - due to their error - was what took me overdrawn) had been about to be returned as unpaid. I'd said I was very concerned as I have 2 other direct debits due to come out this week. She was extremely apologetic. This experience has however affected my confidence in the bank to the effect that I am now strongly contemplating switching banks. For however much longer I stay with Nat West, I will keep a much closer eye on my account and carefully scrutinise receipts given for any transactions, and immediately check online that the transaction has been correctly carried out. It could be said that I should have checked the receipt I was given when I put the money in my account - but I did not feel the need to (I'd trusted the bank to handle my money properly), I just folded it up without looking at it and subsequently shredded it. Am still expecting - despite the assurances given today - that Nat West will still try to apply the charges that I'd have incurred due to their error.
| Posted by Andrea on the 6th July 2009 | ![]() |
| Posted by Ritz on the 1st March 2009 | ![]() |
| Posted by Mark on the 23rd October 2008 | ![]() |
| Posted by Felicity on the 29th September 2008 | ![]() |
| Posted by C Keane on the 11th February 2008 | ![]() |
| Posted by Paul Stenhouse on the 4th November 2007 | ![]() |
| Posted by Jude Rawlins on the 3rd June 2007 | ![]() |
| Posted by Dan Campbell on the 14th May 2007 | ![]() |






After my Doctor told me my condition wasn't likely to improve in the short term I could see the writing on the financial wall and new I would spiral into debt quite quickly so I rang my bank manager who made me an appointment with one of his underlings for two weeks time (none of his friendly banter this time) I had usually been able to get an appointment within 2 days and I explained the urgency but there was apparently nothing he could do. Now call me a cynic but it would appear that as they had 'maxed me out' on financial products and the account was starting to look a bit shaky I was no longer a priority or indeed his 'best mate'. At the meeting I explained the situation and asked for advice on how to manage, the reply was.... and I remember the exact words... cancel your direct debits and pay them manually when you have money in the account to prevent any more bank charges. My wife burst into tears - which he totally ignored - I asked him if he could reduce or even stop the charges as after all I hadn't been irresponsible and could provide the evidence to back up my claims of debilitating illness and a previous exemplary financial record etc and it appeared from examination of my statements that the charges were contributing to my demise. No further advice was offered. I then discovered that none of the 'insurance' I had been sold to cover these payments applied as I actually still had an independent income which was evident before I was sold the insurance. I immediately cancelled all premiums which reduced my outgoings by a considerable amount - a lesson there somewhere - but delayed the process of recovering the premiums already paid as I'd seen what had happened to the accounts of others who had taken the banks to court but vowed that when the dust settled I would. Over the next 12 months we went through a thoroughly miserable time as I played catch up with the mounting charges and diminishing income. My health deteriorated. My wife got a job despite being severely arthritic which helped a great deal. Eventually I gave up with the bank and took some independent financial advice and found that you could indeed get the banks to reduce their charges and interest payments via a debt management agreement.... why didn't my Bank tell me this or offer a similar solution... all I got were letters threatening default notices and later on CCJ's etc. An offer to examine my income and expenditure was eventually sent by the bank. I took them up on the offer and contacted the department I spent one and a half hours talking to someone who was so obviously trying to squeeze as much money out of me as possible. He came up with a figure 10 times that which I had been recommended by a highly reputable independent debt counselling organisation only the day before. I immediately checked back with them to see if they had got their sums right they told me that if the bank was going to take that attitude I had no choice but to declare myself bankrupt.... Which I did.
So the credit cards and outrageous bank charges will never be paid as the official receiver decided I didn't have to pay a penny and recommended an early discharge after 8 months.
So my point is... if the Natwest had been as friendly to me when I was struggling as they had been when I was solvent we would have been able to set up a debt management agreement and I would have been happy to pay as much as I could afford and I would most certainly have been paying the full whack by now as my income has recently improved and these agreements are commensurate with income. Instead they received nothing. I'm not at all bothered because I think they acted badly and entirely in their own interests. But I can't help thinking what fools they have been to be so grabbing even when it was obvious that as my counsellor put it 'they won't be able to get blood out of a stone' but they tried and lost everything.