I’ve started looking into Nationwide’s news in more detail recently, since we didn’t hear about the changes to OFX support until such short notice.
Nationwide is the country’s second-largest savings provider and it has reported a drop of more than 60 per cent in underlying pre-tax profits.
In a Financial Times article today, this interesting statement by Nationwide’s boss stands out:
“We have elected not to chase market share in a retail savings market”
Instead, Nationwide are “[making up] the savings shortfall by accessing the wholesale market”. So rather than worrying about looking after their existing customers like us, they’re saying that it’s easier to make money by lending to other companies behind the scenes.
You can read this as Nationwide not really being interested in customers like us, because they are focussed on making their money behind the scenes. You’re unlikely to hear that in an email from them to us!
But rather than cutting back on the main reason lots of customers stay with the bank, wouldn’t it make sense to simply reinstate the OFX service rather than risk losing more customers today and in future?
Leave a comment if you think I’ve got this wrong, or if you’ve seen other comments from the bosses of Nationwide.
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