Nationwide customers updated over changes to UK law ahead of July date | Personal Finance | Finance
Treasury top official Gwyneth Nurse speaking to MPs (Image: UK Parliament)
Senior Government officials have spoken about major legal changes affecting Nationwide Building Society customers, as well as other building societies. MPs asked top officials from the Treasury for an update on their work to grow the mutuals sector across the UK.
Gwyneth Nurse, director general of financial services at the Treasury, told the Treasury Committee: “We are engaged in a multi-year programme across the mutuals sector. The Chancellor set out quite a lot of this in her first Mansion House speech, and we have been pursuing it ever since.”
In her 2024 Mansion House speech, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a package of reforms to “unlock the full potential” of the mutuals and co-operative sector. One key change she set out was to reform the regulations governing building societies, such as Nationwide.
Existing legislation was amended later in 2024 to pave the way to ease the funding limits imposed on building societies, by providing certain exemptions to these limits. The idea was to open up how these mutuals fund their daily operations, by giving them more scope to raise funds from sources other than their members’ savings.
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The amendment set out that the Treasury could bring in further regulation “made by statutory instrument” to specify what type of funding would be exempt from the funding limits. Ms Nurse updated the commitee on this: “In the same speech [Mansion House 2024], the Chancellor announced that we would make progress on the statutory instruments we need to change the funding limit for building societies.
“We have not made progress on that yet, but I can tell you that we will be laying those statutory instruments before the summer recess. We have some resource that has come in to help us do that.”
The summer recess for Parliament is set for July 16. The Government also previously said it wants to double the size of the mutual and co-operative sector.
The committee asked if the department aims to hit the doubling target by growing smaller providers or with “lots more Nationwides”. Nationwide has millions of members and more than 600 branches. The group recently pledged to keep open all its high street branches until at least the start of 2030.
Ms Nurse told the committee: “I think it would be hard to make lots more Nationwides. There is not a single answer to that. It depends on which part [of the financial services sector] you are looking at.”
Also in her 2024 Mansion House speech, the Chancellor asked the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority to produce a report on the mutuals sector. Ms Nurse gave an update on this study: “They delivered that in December and have committed to looking further at credit union regulation in particular.
“There are a number of recommendations in the report that we will be looking at, and we will be working collaboratively with them on that.” Nationwide also worked with other large mutuals last year to set up the Mutual and Co-operative Business Council. This works to better co-ordinate the sector, by bringing together related trade associations.
Ms Nurse said: “I am really pleased to say that it [the council] has produced three reports on growth in various aspects of the sector. Again, there are some recommendations for us, which we will be looking at closely, working in collaboration with the people involved.”
£175 bonuses for Nationwide customers
Nationwide customers may also want to check if they qualify for a £175 extra payment from the provider. You can currently get the one-off amount if you switch your current account from a non-Nationwide provider to a new or existing FlexDirect, FlexAccount or FlexPlus account.
You need to complete a full switch using the Current Account Switch Service, including closing your old account. Customers also have to pay in at least £1,000 and make one debit card payment.
These two actions need to be completed within 31 days of either opening your new account or applying for the switch into an existing account. Once you’ve completed all these steps, the £175 will be paid into the account you switched into.
The amount will be credited to your account within 10 days of doing all the necessaries. The payment will show on your statement as ‘Switching Offer’. You will only get one payment if you are switching to a joint account.
