NatWest Online Banking > Reviews > GO TO THE BANK WHEN IT SUITS YOU

Author's product rating:   

Efficiency of service	Excellent
Competitiveness of charges/rates	Good
Online - Content/organization of site	Excellent
Online - Reliability/speed of site	Excellent
Online - Ease of applying for products	Good
Online - Investment tracking	Not Applicable

Advantages:	Convinient, check your account any time, secure
Disadvantages:	None

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

~* Introduction *~

If you're a young person NatWest is one of the best banks to go with, unlike all of the other high street banks which require you to be 16 to have a Solo card NatWest give their customers a Solo card from the age of 11. If your not sure what a Solo card please see the various Ciao reviews of it. Basically however it's a debit card that is in many ways like a Switch card, but with a Solo card you can only spend what's in your account…so no getting overdrawn. As you cannot get overdrawn I'm baffled as to why other banks demand that you are 16…

Anyway whether you are a NatWest customer or not you can sign up easily for NatWest online banking which according to a recent Which? survey and a study in .net internet magazine is the best online high street bank. And on top of that natwest.com has the thumbs up from me! Lol.

~* How to Apply *~

If you are a non-NatWest customer you must firstly open up an account with them (which can be done online) and then apply for online banking. When you sign up for online banking with NatWest you have to enter in your account number, sort code and address. After giving them your account number, sort code and address you must then wait several days for them to send you a pin number. Once you receive your personal pin number you have to make up a password and a PIN code (Different to the pin number sent through the post. The pin number sent through the post is just needed once to open the account) As soon as you've chose a password and PIN code you can start banking online!

~* How it Works *~

Logging into your account is a long winded process. Firstly you must enter for example the sixth, first and second digits of your PIN code and then you might have to enter the ninth, sixteenth and twelfth for example letters of your password. Long winded and slow but very secure.

Once logged into your account you can immediately see a mini-statement online. You can then see an entire statement online, transfer money, pay your bills, pay standing orders, make third party payments, request a new paying in book/cheque book and view the balance of your credit cards. A lot of the features here are not relevant to me such as credit cards, bill payment and standing orders but I find it very useful to check my balance online and transfer money. Obviously you can be never reliant on online banking…how would you pay cash in? Stuff it through the floppy-disk drive? But online banking will save you time and is very useful.

And to those who think that "they nick ya dosh" online banking is far safer than telephone banking and on natwest.com there are various extra security measures. If your password and PIN are entered wrongly three times for example your online account is frozen, natwest.com also automatically log you out after 5 minutes of inactivity, so if you accidentally leave it open a family member cannot just transfer some funds…

~* Overall *~

Overall I have been very impressed with natwest.com and although I have no experience with any other online banking services I think that natwest.com must be one of the best. So if your one of those people who use cash points just to see how much they got in their account get yourself an online bank account!