Fee-free ATM withdrawals are back

[Colwyn]

In January Norwich and Peterborough Building Society launched a new service - fee-free debit cards fo use at overseas ATMs when you have current account with them. Looks OK if you can meet one of two conditions - either pay in £500+ per month (for Gold Classic) or make 5 transactions a month (for Gold Light). I've just phoned the Society and been assured that £500 is per account so will cover a joint account for me and Hilary. The MoneySavingExpert website reviews the account quite favourably and so I think I am going to open an account with them soon ... unless anybody can warn me of any downsides to this. Is anyone with N&P already? How do you rate it? If I go ahead I'll make a note of the process and the time taken to get things up and post the results on here.

[col]

Many years a go I used to work for them, I imagine they treat customers better than they did staff (at that time) The only downside with them (as I see it)is....as most of their branches are in the East Of England, if you have any problems with them and don't live near a branch to pop in, the only contact is e mail or possibly long waits on the phone.

[bewva]

I will be interested in the outcome of this Colwyn. Thanks for the heads up.

[Rindaloo]

Been with N&P for many years.  They used to be good but seem to have become more inefficient since they shut some branches.

[bewva]

Just applied for my account tonight. Cust services confirmed it is ok to use as follows; pay in £500 / mth from main bank account, then transfer most of it out to an N & P savings account, then load the account up from savings just before holiday. Free withdrawls abroard.

[Colwyn]

I have noticed that many people start thinking about their holiday money about a fortnight before the fly to Turkey and ask on the forum for the best way of getting lira. The answer we often gave in the past was "Open a Nationwide account and use the debit card - but you probably don't have time to do that". So when I decided to open a Norwich & Peterborough account I thought I would time the process. We now have our joint account, debit cards and PIN numbers and I have arranged for funds to be transferred from Nationwide. I hope they notice that it is going to a competitor that has taken up their former policy to increase its membership and boost its income.

So the process took about 20 minutes online filling in the application (for two) and ten minutes in finding and sending documents and 15 days in total to get the account up and running (inluding two weekends). I might have shaved a day off this had I responded to the request for documents on the day it arrived (a Saturday) but I missed the post that day and it wasn't collected until Monday at 5.30pm.. So it be  might be possible to do it in a fortnight.

I know it is not a huge amount of money involved in fee-free withdrawals but I do hate paying banks to get at my own cash. I shan't waste what I save; I shall spend it on Efes - how much is that again?

[bewva]

I have my accounts open just waiting for the cards to come now. I started on 7th Feb but I had the forms to sign for about 5 days before I sent them back. Im with you Colwyn they make their money on giving me poor interest so why pay them to get your money out.

[salford Al]

Does anyone know if they give a good exchange rate when you withdraw lira from the current account?

[Colwyn]

Al
I don't know for sure what N&P policy is, but Nationwide used to pay (almost) the Interbank Exchange Rate. This is the rate at which banks trade with each other and is based on deals worth over $1 million. This is the figure you see when you look at most foreign exchange data in the financial press or online (but I'm not sure about CBF's link since it seems Coinmill uses a different method but arrives at more-or-less the same result). I have checked this when withdrawing cash and found the difference between published FX rates and what I am charged by my bank to be insignificant - about one penny per £100. So if you see the rate published at £1 = 2.562 TL then that is the rate you get (bearing in mind that the exchange rate varies over the day so it depends on exactly when the Turkish bank whose ATM you used charges your UK bank - I guess at close of the Turkish banking day, or possibly on a daily mean average rate). It is, I believe, the best rate you can get. [I am assuming that N&P is the same].

P.S. Looking into this a little more I find that the rate is actually based on the Visa/Mastercard Wholesale Rate which is calculated the day before and applies to all participating banks on the next day. However, since this rate mirrors market rates - which is what the Interbank Rate measures -it makes no significant difference to what I said above but probably accounts for the very slight variation I noticed. It also confirms that this is the rate applied by N&P.