NatWest

Very poor service, lack of confidentiality, slow and incompetent staff refusing to transfer a small amount of money unless a reason was given for the transfer. After waiting for 20minutes outside in the sun in a very small cue, respecting social distancing measures, I finally got inside. I immediately asked the cashier if they had any spare card readers so I could make my payments privately instead of in front of customers and staff. To my disappointment they had none left. After passing the necessary identification checks I then attempted to transfer money, to one of my saved payees that I had been using for nearly 6 months. The cashier demanded a reason and I responded with no comment - which was initially accepted by the cashier. I then asked if I was required to give a reason, to which the cashier clarified by saying that it wasn't necessary. As the transaction progressed, the cashier had to get a colleague to confirm it. The colleague then refused to process the transaction citing that a reason was required despite the cashier claiming one wasn't necessary. There appeared to be a total lack of understanding of how basic banking transfer and due diligence checks work by both of these employees. The manager then came over and immediately jumped to the same conclusion that the transaction couldn't be processed without me providing a reason. The manager made no attempt to understand my situation and took the classic 'customer is always wrong' stance. The fact that the manager seemed very impatient and seemed to have a huge lack of customer service experience speaks volumes about how anyone that banks with Natwest should do so with extreme caution. I can tell you that the amount of money being transferred was substantially under any limit (aside from the £1k daily limit) and was a very modest amount. The cashier and manager even admitted, that I would have been able to transfer this amount of money at home with my card reader as it was so small and NO REASON would be required. I would like to emphasise on the fact that the cashier offered no confidentiality whatsoever. Anyone attempting to transfer money could easily be exposed to fraud or potentially attacked on the way out of the store. You can easily be overheard by customers who could be criminals - they could then follow you home and potentially threaten you. I sincerely hope elderly people or anyone vulnerable going to this bank aren't exposed to this.

I'm there almost every week or fortnight. My requests are the same, pay in money and get change. The cashiers are only ever nice to me. I've never had a problem with them. Obviously at lunch time it's busy so with there being only 2 cashier stands sometimes a 3rd cashier will come to help out. I like this branch because they have a coin machine and there is parking nearby. Plus water dispenser is available

Patient and helpful cashiers, but you do often have to wait a while.

Terrible experience at this branch. First person we opened the account with told us to come back to the branch once we received a confirmation letter in the mail in order to receive our debit card. We received our letter, followed the instructions online to activate the account and that was it. No account creation process no password creation, nothing. We saw that we needed our debit card to sign in (which makes zero sense) so we went into the branch as soon as we had free time to grab our card as originally instructed. Fast forward to today, and the lady at the counter had a smug smile as she thought we were fools for not understanding how things work (even though it was her colleague who misinformed us). She told us our debit card was sent out yesterday, and that it would take 4-5 more days to reach its destination. As we are in the process of moving that doesn’t work because we are switching our address by the estimated arrival date. No one told us the card was going to be mailed to us, we could have informed them of this issue if they communicated correctly. She said we instead could send the card to the branch, but we’d have to cancel the debit card in transit via Royal Mail in order to order a new one. Seemed reasonable. We get home 30 minutes after this conversation and our debit card was in the mail slot. Now we are just screwed for another week. I understand banking takes time in order for things to be secure, but my god you people need to communicate not only with each other but your customers better. She printed out two receipts with our account number (first time we even saw it) and wasn’t going to give it to us until my partner asked “Is one of those for me?” Not a single person ever told us the same thing.

The cashiers are generally very nice. Been banking with this branch for several years and have maintained contact with several having taken on certain products/accounts etc. I'd recommend for in store service, even if the wait can be a little long sometimes.