Nationwide Building Society gives 11,000 staff £1,200 payment to help with cost of living crisis

Nationwide Building Society will pay more than 11,000 staff £1,200 to help them cope with the cost of living crisis.

Those earning £35,000 or less a year, which is around 61% of the banking business’ 18,000-strong workforce, will be offered the payment.

Other UK banks have made similar payments to support staff.

HSBC gave some workers a one-off payment of £1,500 earlier this month while in June, Barclays gave 35,000 UK staff a £1,200 pay bump.

In July, NatWest paid 22,000 workers in lower paid jobs £1,000.

Nationwide’s payment, which the customer-owned bank said would target the most financially vulnerable, is on top of its annual pay review earlier this year which gave every employee a 4% rise.

The building society also raised the base salaries of 4,000 of its lowest paid colleagues in response to the rising cost of living.

Debbie Crosbie, Nationwide’s CEO, said: “The months ahead will be worrying for many people and we’re always considering new ways to help our members.

“But rising prices affect our colleagues too and that’s why we’re providing this additional support.”

It comes as UK workers saw their pay lag behind inflation at record levels over the past quarter, according to official figures.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said regular pay, excluding bonuses, grew by 4.7% over the three months to June while inflation hit a new 40-year record of 9.4%.

In July, the government has announced details of how households in Scotland and the rest of the UK will receive £400 to help with rising energy bills in autumn.

The money will be paid in six instalments to help families throughout winter.

Millions of households will see a discount of £66 applied to their energy bills in October and November, rising to £67 each month from December through to March 2023.

But pressure is growing on governments at all levels to do more to help households who are struggling to deal with soaring energy bills.