Nationwide

[Theyreeatingthedogs]

On the day I get a paltry £100 bonus as a mutual owner of the Nationwide I received an email asking me to vote at the AGM. The directors think that it is a good idea to pay the Chief Executive up to £7,000,000.
I will be voting against this and against the re-election of the directors.

You should be grateful for your £100. Vote against the £7m pay rise. Honestly Some folk are never satisfied.

Hasn't the Chief exec overseen the recent virgin money aquisition which gave nationwide customers another £50 in addition to the £100? Seems like they're doing a pretty good job.

Vote for whoever you want but "Chief exec in finance gets paid well" isn't exactly breaking news. I'm sure the Chief execs of other banks/building socs get paid similar amounts but as far as I know haven't given all their customers a free £350 in the last 25 months, so personally I'll be sticking with nationwide.

They're a building society, not a charity, or even a public sector org.

I guess as others mentioned other banks do not give anything in return and their CEOs are also paid big bucks .I recently moved to Nationwide after being with Barclays for 27 years...the day they started to give bonus for people to join them when I never got anything in all those years, I decided to jump ship. I moved less than a year ago & £325 up.

I've just closed all my Nationwide accounts. Nothing to encourage me to stay really and I never qualified for the £100, paltry or not, despite having 4 accounts. I evidently had the wrong ones.
I agree about the outrageous salaries and 'bonuses' though.
Capitalism at its best, eh?!

I'm grateful for the £100. However this is a mutual, so why is the boss getting such a big wedge to run it? Use your vote wisely, OP.

Because you want people to run it who are the best at their job. Which means the salary has to compete with those offered to other CEOs of large banking sector organisations.

Nationwide are the only bank account I’m aware of that have given anything to their customers. Nationwide have done fairer share for at least the last 3 years and given a £50 payment a few months ago. DH and I both nationwide current accounts and so that is £700 for us for nothing more than paying our salaries into there and it going straight back out for bills.

The CEOs of Barclays and HSBC are on about £14-15 million, so relatively speaking the CEO of Nationwide is quite underpaid. Those fairer share payments have only been able to be made because they’ve made money. To be able to make that money, you need to pay someone a big salary to attract that talent.

Obviously in an ideal world, banking salaries wouldn’t be so sickeningly high while many other jobs are so poorly paid. But that’s hardly a news flash, it’s why there was such outrage when we had to bail out the banks in 2008. Unfortunately we live in a capitalist society. But at the end of the day nobody really wants to overthrow capitalism, so we’ll keep paying ridiculous sums of money to those that make the most money. Obviously as a member, you are entitled to vote however you choose but if you use that £100 for anything, it’s just part of the cycle of capitalism.

I didn't get the £100 because I moved money into my savings account 1 day too late. Had I known I'd have done it sooner.

There's a lot of people that £100 could change their whole month op, vote as you are inclined to do so but don't sniff at a benefit.

But the "best" in the banks are answerable to shareholders. The mutual owners are happy with a paltry £100 annual bonus and thrown the scraps of £50 on the takeover. It's astounding how the masses are easily ripped off.

Well it certainly meant we could do a food shop. 👍

If the CEO truly believes she is worth so much, then let her try applying for a job with a different institution. The Nationwide is supposed to be run for its members, and haven't they seen average pay-rises this last year!? Maybe the board is losing touch with its membership base. If the CEO gets the ridiculous pay-rise then it might be worthwhile voting against all non-exec board reappointments this year and next year.

As for the annual bonus, people can get more by switching to a different bank.

Why are people changing accounts? What do other banks offer that matches or exceeds this?

They don’t. Some of them you get a bonus for switching, but the advantages of being with nationwide far outweigh that.

Theyre committed to keeping branches open, give their customers a share of their profits and their customer service is pretty decent.

Why would she apply elsewhere when she has a job where she is?

Love getting £100 a year as my other banks never gave me anything. I also get £100 to keep my mortgage with them.

I had £200 to switch to then, plus had £150 this year. For it to come In April, when bills are all going up, was much appreciated. Also have two good savings account rates with them. Very happy with them.

I’m biased but after being a loyal customer with Nationwide for 14 years they treated me awfully staff laughed down the phone at me, scarcastic unprofessional reply’s on email, incorrect policy advice, complaints upheld, I closed my accounts as no one cares about the customers. There has been a newspaper that says they changed the voting rule so even if all members vote against this huge pay it doesn’t have to be accepted that tells you everything… www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/06/anger-as-nationwide-refuses-members-a-binding-vote-on-bosss-43-pay-hike

Because you want people to run it who are the best at their job. Which means the salary has to compete with those offered to other CEOs of large banking sector organisations.

This line is always trotted out it to justify ridiculous bonuses. FGS - who needs more that £1million in one year on top of their already hefty salary?? Let alone £7m - I agree with the OP - it's utterly ludicrous. And yes yes I think the same about footballers salaries.

At least put a cap on all bonuses to be £1m or less.

I voted against them for outsourcing their webchat facility abroad which has made the service pretty much unusable.

I thought that companies were learning from this crap.

more than happy to take their money, but a lot of it will be a distraction from what goes on behind the scenes.

the merger with virgin money will almost certainly lead to redundancies.

If trust pilot score is anything to go by Nationwide is heading down hill fast appears from the angry customers on there their customer service and complaints are non existent.. https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.nationwide.co.uk

Two questions @Theyreeatingthedogs:

1. How much money do you think you should receive if £100 is paltry?
2. How much should the CEO be paid if £7m is too much?

Ha ha i cannot believe people still swallow this BS.

Borrowing money at very low interest rates ie from savers.... lending it back out at very high ones.

Next you'll be defending the CEO of Tesco earning £8m.. what a tough job with just 4 competitors and selling a product we all need!

The reality is, these people support each others pay rises - merry go round of greed.

its even funnier that these savers who are getting low rates on their savings are lapping up the fair share payment when Nationwides own adverts is a parody of course Nationwide is different from the banks.. Nationwide adverts laughing at their customers gullibility