Yeah another happy Nationwide customer here. They happily send things to my French address - including a replacement card reader.
I did run into an issue recently whereby upon launching the app on my phone I was told an upgrade was needed and that I needed to uninstall the existing version - which I did.
However, the Nationwide app doesn’t appear outside the UK Google Play Store. My Google account is registered with the French Play Store. They even have a knowledge base article on their site telling you to install the app “in the UK”.
I managed to work around it in the end, without needing to do anything risky. It’s the only issue I’ve had, iirc.
Nationwide are a “mutual” not a bank, hence why they are able to be more helpful on this. However I believe they are happy to let you keep an existing account but not open a new one if you are non-UK resident.
That said some banks are OK - I opened an account with First Direct as a backup to my Nationwide one on the understanding that they too would allow the account to be retained.
Barclays debanked me (in 2003, pre-Brexit) the instant I told them I was moving to Turks & Caicos.
And Lloyds have given notice to quit in respect of the Trust bank account set up by my father, purely because they can’t be arsed to service trust accounts any more…
Banks will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
I have an iPhone.
I tried dowloading the Nationwide app from the App Store while in the UK last week but - although the app appeared on my iPhone - I couldn’t get it working.
When I enter my customer number, DOB and tick the box to say I have an overseas post code, I just end up with a message saying “We cannot find those details”.
Yet the information is correct and the customer number is the one I use regularly with the card reader, without any problems.
I seem to recall reading something on the Nationwide site about having to set up the app before you move from the UK to another country.
The Nationwide know I’m in France so my French address is the one they have registered for me.
Annoying, but the exception. As I have said above, we have 3 different UK bank accounts none of whom refused to continue with us when we moved to France.
I think that’s a different issue, more to do with Nationwide than Apple, and I guess I’ll need to be careful to never log out of the app as I might not get back in.
I use Molotov for French TV but can’t get the app on my iPad because my account is linked to the UK. If I change it France (which you can only do once per year, I believe) then I can’t download iPlayer.
On android, I can have 2 accounts simultaneously, one France and the other UK so I get the best of both worlds.
We were with them in France originally because my wife had a UK HSBC, but we found that the two nearest French branches (Limoges and Toulouse) were both about 200kms away. I think they’re only in large cities.
I have not been inside an HSBC branch (in the UK, that is, or France) in probably about thirty years. Everything is done online (occasionally by phone) and never needed a physical presence since coming to France 18 years ago.
Of course you did - we all do. But I just wanted to reassure anyone moving here that our experience has been very different, so better not to generalise.
Lloyds are French resident friendly, but then I had held an account with them for decades before emigrating.
They did almost instantly drop my credit card limit down to £500 when someone realised that they couldn’t just send the bailiffs round if I missed a payment.
Got a letter a few years back informing us that new cards wouldn’t be automatically issued and we’d have to request replacements before existing cards expired.
Wise are not a bank. We really need to stop calling their accounts bank accounts as it just makes people assume they are a bank, and so will offer the levels of protection etc of a fully licensed bank. Due to their very long and difficult attempts to get a UK banking license being publicised there is much greater knowledge than Revolut is not a bank in the UK (although of course it is elsewhere including the EU), but given they have a much older customer based I have always felt Wise do a very poor job at making sure they are known not to be a bank. They do say so of course, but imo nowhere near enough.
