NatWest Credit Cards

I took out a Natwest credit card at the end of my final year as a student to help with trainfares when travelling to interviews etc. I opted for this card purely because I banked with Natwest and was very impressed with my student account. Unfortunately, their credit card services have failed to impress. I have found them to be consistently unhelpful, inefficient and inconsiderate.

I have been a loyal NatWest Credit Card customer for a while now, and generally never had a problem. However, I have had a bit of a problem in the past few weeks. I set up a direct deposit system which would automatically make a payment for me each month. And until recently I hadn't had an issue with this serive. A few months ago, using this service, I paid off my credit card balance completely. Yet, due to some error a direct deposit was still made. This left a credit on my account which NatWest had to pay me! After contacting customer support and waiting on hold several times, I was told a cheque in the amount of the balance had been sent to me. From this point it took an addtional two weeks to recieve the cheque. I felt this was way too long to wait to have an error corrected. Something should be done to make this a speedier process.

Overall, I've been very happy with my NatWest credit card since getting it to tide me over between graduating and getting a proper job (I was kind of amazed that they gave me a card when I was just temping, but I've found out a lot more since then about how easy it is to get credit). From £1100 credit limit I am now at just over three times that. I haven't really used it to borrow money except for a brief period to make sure I had enough to pay for my deposit when buying a flat. The interest rate isn't cheap, but at about 1% a month it means you can have a spare £2000 for a while for only £20 a month (minimum repayments of about £70 if I remember rightly). The card also been useful for enabling me to make direct debit payments without keeping too much money in my current account, and for online shopping. If you make your purchase at the right time it also provides you with almost two months of interest free credit before you have to cough up. The card balance can also be managed through NatWest online banking, which is a bonus. One word of caution though - when I moved house I went into my local NatWest and told them my new address, and everything seemed to be fine. Then the new washing machine and sofa I'd bought online with my card didn't arrive. I re-orded them, same problem. I phoned the retailers and they had no record of me even having ordered them. Eventually it turned out my card had been queried and the orders cancelled without anyone telling me, because I didn't live at the address stated on the card. Why? Because NatWest cards are completely separate from NatWest (apparently) and aren't allowed to share address details, so my branch never told the card people I'd moved. Seems a bit odd to me. I'm kind of glad to be secure, but I don't think many fraudsters order washing machines for home delivery! But I'm still happy with them by and large, even if always tempted to build up a huge balance then move to a 0% offer, but then I decide I don't want the complications.

The Natwest student credit card is definitely one of best credit deals that students can get. It has a 56 day interest free period meaning that you can wait two months before paying it back. This is great for if you have a delay on student finance. This is also a good credit card because you can set it up to direct debit from your natwest student account. This is the best student account around. The other advantage is that if you have enough money in your student account then you can use this card like a debit card and build up a credit rating. This is an important thing to have when you graduate as it makes getting loans easier and quicker. I would not advise getting a credit card if you are not wise with your money and how you spend it because the penalty for missing the interest free 'deadline' is that you pay a large amount of interest thereafter.