For some years now I’ve been harping on about how great Nationwide are as the only UK bank with a debit card you can use abroad for no fees. Likewise, their credit card is one of only three (along with Abbey National and the Post Office) with the same no-fee deal. I even changed my regular current account to them to take advantage of these.
But – you guessed it – no more. From 6 May for its credit card, and 1 June on the debit card, you’ll pay an added 0.84% on spending outside Europe, jumping to 1% in July. Their wording is that they themselves are not adding a fee. They’re simply no longer going to “absorb” the fees that Visa charge to the bank. It’s still – I believe – less than virtually every other bank’s existing charges.
I got the first warning of this from the excellent Money Saving Expert site, though full details can be found (if you dig…) here at Nationwide.
So, without doing a huge amount of research it seems that changing the credit card could be worthwhile but that the debit card (for ATM withdrawals) is still a better deal than any other.
Hi Iain,
Your blog is very informative, unbelievable how many ‘things to know’ you have on it! When are you going to see Katie? Can you give her a big hug from me? What are your further plans for Oz and later??? Have fun!
I was planning on seeing Katie around now-ish, but I rescheduled. Hopefully I’ll make it to Darwin in roughly 3 weeks, maybe a bit less.
I’m essentially circling (ish) Oz, then I *hope* to make it to Japan and S.Korea, although the Philippines and East Timor are other alternatives. I guess we’ll just have to see 🙂