Having a Nationwide bank account in the UK has always meant no charges incurred on the card when withdrawing money from foreign cash machines etc....until now!
Sadly I had a letter in the mail today informing me...
"When you use a Nationwide Visa debit card to make transactions in certain currencies other than sterling, Visa charge a fee for each transaction and Nationwide currently pays that fee on your behalf. From 1 June 2009 we will start to pass on this fee to you...It is only payable on transactions in currencies outside the Visa Europe region...In the future, there may be other foreign currency or overseas transaction charges that we incur which we may pass on to you..."
Visa credit cards are affected earlier, I believe.
Nooo!!!!
So any folks abroad now and happily using their Nationwide Visa debit and credit cards, watch out for those new charges!
For more information check out this link
Foreign transactions Reply to this Hello Hollie 😊
I deleted your duplicate post, as requested.
Mel
Reply to this Got the same letter last week. It's so frustrating! Nationwide was the last sensible bank that didn't charge and now there's no avoiding it!
Reply to this We opened a nationwide account specifically because it said it didn't charge for withdrawals abroad, v frustrating. However, as I understand it, whilst nationwide will now be charging where they didn't before the charge is still significantly lower than other banks, c. 1.8% vs 4.5-5% so relatively speaking they are still the best bet.
Reply to this When I spoke to Nationwide on the phone, I was told that VISA currently charges Nationwide 0.84% per international transaction. VISA is increasing this fee to 1% so Nationwide are passing the difference onto their customers, ie 0.16%.
This is the charge for VISA debit card holders - we aren't sure whether we'll get charged 0.16% or 1% when 1st June comes around as the person on the phone might have been mistaken. But if you think most banks now charge a 2% withdrawal fee plus a commission/less favourable exchange rate then Nationwide is still pretty good.
Still disappointed in Nationwide though!
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