Nationwide fends off speculators
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Nationwide Building Society was forced yesterday to raise the minimum opening balance on many of its savings accounts after coming under siege from carpet-baggers hoping to gain from potential free share windfalls.
Coventry Building Society barred some account openings altogether after being similarly inundated. Both societies have declared their commitment to mutuality.
At Nationwide, 25,000 new accounts were opened in a single day last week, with some branches running out of passbooks as they tried to cope with a flood of applications from so-called "carpet-baggers".
The openings come as Nationwide fights off a bid by five rebel members, campaigning under the banner Members for Conversion, to win seats on the society's board in this month's election. If the rebels were to win, or to do well in the election, they would claim this reflected a mandate for demutualisation.
The Building Societies Commission, the industry's watchdog, denied suggestions yesterday that it was seeking to bar the five candidates on the grounds of inexperience. A spokesman said that, as with all successful candidates, their suitability would be assessed after the election.
Nationwide claimed yesterday that a large number of new openings were not from windfall speculators but from genuine savers attracted to its highly competitive rates.
"A large proportion of the openings is not speculative in that sense. For example, what we are seeing is the average balance is pounds 10,000 compared with the pounds 500 minimum. A lot of that comes from demutualising societies."
Nationwide is increasing the minimum balance on some accounts to forestall carpetbaggers. These include the Capital Builder account, whose opening balance stood at pounds 1,000, was dropped to pounds 500 in April but has been raised back to pounds 1,000. Invest Direct, another account, has gone from pounds 500 to pounds 2,000.
Coventry said it had been pushed into halting new openings of MoneyMaker and Bonus savings accounts.
Other accounts would only be available to customers living within certain Midlands postcodes.
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments