I have had an account with the Woolwich for all of my 26 years, my Grandmother having opened an account for me when I was born. Throughout that time I have tried and tested many of their accounts and feel suitably qualified to comment.
My overall opinion of the Woolwich is that it is a ... Read review
Advantages: Quite a few branches and a couple of good accounts Disadvantages: You need to actively moitor your accounts - they will NOT do it for you. They are only out to make a PROFIT
...had an account with the Woolwich for all of my 26 years, my Grandmother having opened an account for me when I was born. Throughout that time I have tried and tested many of their accounts and feel suitably qualified to comment.
My overall opinion of the Woolwich is that it is a bank that has just got too big for its boots. It's savings products at one time competed with the best of the best, offering high rates and good incentives. ... ...as a good example of Woolwich policy. This account used to be one of the highest paying accounts on the market offering instant access counter service. It is a no frills account, you do not get a cheque book or a cash card and so can only access your money during banking hours. Why then are they paying less interest on this account now than on their current account where you do actually get a banking service?
I have had an account with the Woolwich for all of my 26 years, my Grandmother having opened an account for me when I was born. Throughout that time I have tried and tested many of their accounts and feel suitably qualified to comment.
My overall opinion of the Woolwich is that it is a bank that has just got too big for its boots. It's savings products at one time competed with the best of the best, offering high rates and good incentives. Following privatisation there appears only to be one word on the lips of the directors - "profit".
I currently run several accounts at the Woolwich, ranging from a Prime Gold savings account paying a miserly fraction of a percent interest to an Open Plan savings account paying just over 5%. Take the Prime Gold account as a good example of Woolwich policy. This account used to be one of the highest paying accounts on the market offering instant access counter service. It is a no frills account, you do not get a cheque book or a cash card and so can only access your money during banking hours. Why then are they paying less interest on this account now than on their current account where you do actually get a banking service?
Then there was the debacle with their Base Rate Tracker Bond. I was advised when this product came out that this was the way forward. The account would pay interest in accordance with the bank's base rate and would also pay a bonus amount of interest for the first few months. I wasn't convinced when they told me that I could run the account in exactly the same way as my Prime Gold account, with instant access to my money at any time and with the ability to add to the deposit since the product was described as a bond, but sure enough, the literature supported what the staff were saying. Having set up the account, about two weeks later, I decided to transfer funds from a postal account which was paying a slightly lower rate of interest to the bond. I arranged for a cheque to be drawn and presented it at the Woolwich only to be told, "sorry, that account is now closed and we cannot accept any more deposits." The cashier then proceeded to tell me that the Woolwich had changed their minds over what had proved to be a popular product and had decided to alter the terms. I could get money out, but I could not deposit any. No notice was given to investors of this change to the account and there were no notices in the branches. What made this worse is that at the time they could not offer me a product into which I could pay this cheque that was offering a rate of interest which was anything like the rate I was getting before I withdrew my money and, to add insult to injury, I could not re-deposit the money I had drawn out as the building society in question had legitimately closed the account.
The saga continues. I now have an open plan account which, no matter how often I try, I cannot access my data from a computer so my only option is telephone banking as I will be charged for branch counter transactions.
My tracker account has also just matured and in true Woolwich style the account they transferred the money to automatically was not paying the best rate of interest. I therefore have to go into a branch again and get the money moved.
You may think that I have just been unlucky, but it seems that there is a similar story wherever you look. My neighbours, both in their late 80s have just been advised by the Woolwich to put their life savings into a 5 year bond paying a pathetic 3.45%. They will not have access to this money and it does not strike me as a sensible idea to intentionally tie up someone's money when they are so elderly.
The Woolwich have no regard to who they are serving and I am convinced that their only objective is profit and that this should be achieved at all costs. Customer loyalty is an alien phrase, they should take a leaf out of the Leeds and Holbeck BS book who actively promote loyalty with special rates and incentives rather than the Woolwich approach of moving your money to a lower rate account or dropping the rates on existing accounts once they are no longer open for new subscribers.
If you have money in the Woolwich be very careful to review the products on a frequent basis to ensure that your money is working hard for you and that the terms of your accounts have not changed without you being notified.
Advantages: Online/telebanking very easy to use and flexible, Can earn more interest Disadvantages: Can be difficult to track large numbers of transactions, Only limited counter services are free
...account in association with a Woolwich mortgage for over a year, before transferring my mortgage elsewhere. I have noticed no differences in how the account operates, you'll be pleased to hear.
Now it's pretty much a typical current account, and like all accounts you have to make sure it will work for you. I operate most of my banking through the Internet and telebanking, for reasons I'll explain more in depth as we go. So what facilities can this ... ...your money ~
The Woolwich really are trying to cut back on their counter services. Many main branches now have only 2 or 3 counter staff, and that's assuming they haven't closed their branches. They've tried to make up for this by abolishing the controversial fee to withdraw money from the Link network of machines (32,000 countrywide). You can also withdraw money free from branches of Barclays.
As I said I do most banking over the Internet, but ...
cazm17 25.10.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Woolwich Accounts
Advantages: 24 hour online and telephone banking Disadvantages: High monthly charge for overdraft, sometimes a temperamental website
I have had a Woolwich account for as long as I can remember, and a couple of years ago ago upgraded to the Open Plan Account. WHAT IS OPEN PLAN?
The idea of the Open plan account is that you can off-set your current and savings accounts against your mortgage resulting in you paying less interest overall and possibly even reduce the overall mortgage term, this is because interest on the account is calculated daily, and credit balances in other accounts ... ...on a whole range of Woolwich products and transfer money between accounts. Since the takeover by Barclays, a lot of investment has been put into increasing the mortgage side of the business, as we found out tonight when an independent mortgage adviser came around our house to tell us how we could save money - do these people think we are really this imbecilic?
The on-screen display (if you can manage to get through their tight, tight security) - ...
sue.51 23.03.2001 (26.02.2002)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Woolwich Accounts
Advantages: Nice idea Disadvantages: Didn't quite work out for me, better accounts around
I had a Woolwich Card Saver account which I opened a few years ago because it seemed like a great idea. The premise was that you managed your account via the cash machines and that it offered a high interest rate because of this. I found it extremely inconvenient and the interest rate wasn't that great. The problem was that I couldn't pay any money into the account because I was working at the time and couldn't get to the bank in order to get the ... ...banking and a much better account paying a higher rate of interest. Cheltenham & Gloucester offered a phone account that was linked to a cheque account and this is what I use now.
The Woolwich Card Saver account was a nice idea, it just didn't quite work for me. ...
adamdavid 03.10.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Woolwich Accounts
Advantages: Efficient, reliable, cheap, new Disadvantages: None as yet
...opened an account with the woolwich where you can get the best of all worlds, in branch, by telephone and via the internet. The customer services are excellent, the products very good and the offers they give are also very good.
The Woolwich are offering the Open Plan bank account as their one for internet access, i have found it to be the most comprehensive package available so far, they offer you a brand new nokia 7110 (WAP)for nothing if you ... ...enough.
The products the Woolwich offer are also very competitive in interest rates (LOans and Credit Cards) They can even set up savings pots for you, this is where you tell them the minimum you want to be in your bank account and overnight, they'll sweep it and deposit the difference into a savings pot for you, this giving you a high amount of interest, but (A) You don't have to have these and (B) You can take the savings at any time aswell.
...
Advantages: Flexibility given by telephone and internet banking. Disadvantages: Cannot change given password. Can't link with allmortgages
...normal current account with the Woolwich for a few years I found myself in the position to upgrade to their new Open Plan Account. I thought originally that I could tie it in with my Woolwich mortgage, but that was not possible at the time.
The upgrade itself is free from an existing current account. I chose to open a completely new one for personal reasons, and found the application form relatively simple to complete.
They did take quite a while ... ...but that was only to be expected with the high levels of demand from their advertising.
I find it has some very useful features. I personally love the internet and telephone banking elements, where I can pay bills without even leaving the office! It's really easy to manage, if you can remember the password they give you (you can't change it unfortunately!).
I hope to take advantage of the WAP phone banking in the future, but for the time being ...
cazm 04.11.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Woolwich Accounts
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Advantages: Unhelpful information from Local branch Disadvantages: Everything
I have been acustomer with the Woolwich for about 5 years changing my current account into the all new open plan about a year ago.
I then heard about the merger between Barclays and The Woolwich and I thought time to move having never been a fan of Barclays. I opened an account with Nationwide but before I could get the account up and running I found myself in Hospital following an RTA.
In November I made a stupid mistake a wrote acheque from the wrong account (Woolwichaccount) and managed to become overdrawn (the first time in 14 years that I have been overdrawn with any bank). As soon as I realised my error I transfered funds to the Woolwich open plan account only to receive two letters, at £27 each, telling me of the obvious, one letter dated on the day of the transaction to credit my account and the other after I had credited ...
sadcrab 23.02.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Woolwich
Advantages: Flexible Open Plan Mortgage can earn good interest which can reduce the mortage. Disadvantages: Setting up the account took forever to the point of getting close to loosing the property. Got some compensation though.
Due to the nature of our jobs, we have to claim considerable amounts of money that stay in our account for short period of time before it dissapears to cover the bills. Open Plan account from Woolwich is linked with a savings account where we can keep all the "spare" money and earn interest for the short period the money stays in the account.
There are multiple advantages:
- the monthly mortgage is reduced because the money we kept in the account reduced the overall amount we borrowed (even when we had the money for one day)
- the interest is calculated daily
- we can use the little savings to repay the mortgage, which reduces the interest steadily
- for whatever reason we can stop the payments for few months
- we have the option to increase the mortgage with an extra 20k which we can use to improve or develop the property ...
Advantages: Good service, flexible mortgage, flexible borrowing Disadvantages: None I can call to mind!
We remortgaged with the Woolwich a couple of years ago to finance improvements on our house. The packaged offered was an Offset Mortgage which sounded perfect, and so far to date has been very flexible and I would recomend this package.
The Offset mortgage package basically takes into account any savings that are in your Woolwich current account or savings "pots" and adds them up, and you only pay interest on your mortgage balance, less the total ammount of your savings. So say your mortgage is for £50,000 and you have £5000 in savings with the Woolwich, you only pay interest on £45,000. Brilliant!
The other feature we liked was the ability to make overpayments on our mortgage, without incurring redemtion charges for paying the mortgage off early. In two and a half years, by making over payments, we reduced the term from 22 years ...
