News

October 2001 – This self styled ‘”consumers’ champion” was brought to book by a genuine consumers’ champion in the form of the Daily Telegraph’s Jessica Gorst-Williams who investigated a case where Nationwide was imposing two mortgage early redemption penalties on a member.  The sums involved were £11,441 and £20,389.  The newspaper reports that Nationwide insisted it…

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September 2001 – The Sunday Telegraph reports that having lured people into opening TESSA-only ISAs paying a rate of 7.25% the Britannia has slashed the rate by an astonishing 1.75% to 5.5%.  The reduction is double the amount by which the bank base rate was cut.

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August 2001 – A report by Steve lodge in Moneyfacts on society chief executives’ very mutual pay increases shows that the greed continues and most are still helping themselves to bigger and bigger handfuls of members’ money. Brian Davis – Nationwide still gets the “Biggest Snout in the Trough Award” at £768,000.  That is over twice…

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August 2001 – Brian Davis – Chief Executive to “retire” at year end. Our Comment – By “retiring early” rather than leaving he will receive an immediate pension of £314,000 per year through the generosity of Nationwide members and that will be on top of the salary and pension from his next job/jobs.  This annual payment…

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August 2001 – The annual report shows that an NHS executive director, Kate Priestley, has joined the board as a non-executive director. Our Comment – It would seem that either a full-time job with the NHS leaves plenty of time to spare or turning up at society boardroom meetings is a very occasional affair.  Now we…

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July 2001 – From the AGM – In the board’s continuing fight against members’ rights, it has decided to outlaw members’ resolutions without any change to the rule book.  This is said to be the latest legal interpretation of what members’ are not allowed to do.  This comes in response to attempts to make societies more…

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June 2001 – The latest Nationwide propaganda leaflet states “Members – not – shareholders are our focus so you can trust us to be open, honest and fair”. Our Comment – The exceptions seem to be with voting documents and when giving evidence to the Parliamentary Treasury Committee.  The same leaflet clams “Nationwide has always been…

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May 2001 – “Putting our customers first” (not members).  The Annual Report and Accounts contains a slight error, despite being voted on and approved and despite the fact that few members saw the report anyway.  The “compensation package” for the resigning chief executive was a mere £448,000 not £361,000 as shown in the report. Our Comment…

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May 2001 – New chairman Martin Ritchley (Chief Executive of Coventry BS) says this year’s event looks at ways to increase accountability to members. Our Comment – It is doubtful if they looked at it for very long as accountability is not a very popular subject with directors.

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