National Counties Building Society

Advantages: Customer Service is second-to-none
Disadvantages: Some good products, but no great products...

National Counties (or NCBS) are a long-established but small Building Society, with a very large capital base (£93m I think). Their investment accounts are conducted largely by post (the Society only has one small branch in Epsom, Surrey) whilst mortgage business is all administered at their Head Office - also in Epsom, Surrey. NCBS offers quite a wide variety of investment accounts, although almost all of them have a reasonably high minimum opening ...
...Direct Access Share Accounts, although there are concessions for investors living within the Epsom area. The interest offered on all their accounts is quite poor; to achieve a good rate you have to have a very high balance, as the interest rates are on a 'tiered' system - in other words, the higher your balance, the higher your interest rate will be. The staff seem reasonably knowledgeable about the Society business; all enquries are dealt with promptly, ... Read review