When the Nationwide Fairer Share payment was announced I was disappointed to find my child, who holds a Nationwide Junior Isa, did not receive a £100 payment. 

The Junior Isa is open in their own name, not mine and has a balance of more than £100 in it.  

I am now minded to move the Junior Isa elsewhere else as this is one of the reasons I chose Nationwide for my child’s Junior Isa. 

Am I missing something and why did they not receive it? 

Children were eligible for the third annual £100 Nationwide Fairer Share payment – if they had the right savings account and currenta account 

Helen Kirrane, of This is Money, replies: Nationwide’s 2025 Fairer Share deal was the building society’s biggest yet. Nationwide dished out £400million to 4million members, who will each receive a payment of £100 between 18 June and 4 July. 

With 16million members, that means a quarter of Nationwide’s members banked the payment 

But this still means three quarters missed out, because Nationwide had strict eligibility criteria as to who would be eligible for 

Generally to be eligible for the Fairer Share deal, members needed to have a qualifying Nationwide current account open on 31 March 2025. 

They then needed to have either a Nationwide savings account with at least £100 in it on any day at the end of March, or £100 left on a Nationwide residential mortgage on 31 March. 

Children were not exempt from receiving a £100 Fairer Share payment if they had the right savings account, one in their name, and a current account. 

Nationwide told me Junior Isas do qualify. As these are held in an account in the name of a child, the money will count towards the child’s qualifying savings. 

To get expert advice as to why your child didn’t qualify for this year’s £100 Fairer Share payment, we spoke to Andrew Hagger, founder of personal website Money Comms and James Blower, founder of savings website the Savings Guru.  

Andrew Hagger said: The Nationwide Fairer Share terms and conditions state that a qualifying current account must be held together with either a savings account or mortgage.

If a child has a Nationwide Junior Cash Isa in their name – not in the parents name for the benefit of the child – and also a Nationwide FlexOne Account, the current account for children 11-17 years of age, then they would qualify. 

In addition, they would only qualify if they made a payment into or out of the FlexOne account during March 2025 and also the Junior Isa must have had a balance of at least £100 on any one day during March 2025.

The rules for the payout are very specific and unfortunately some customers will feel aggrieved, because they consider themselves a loyal customer, but didn’t qualify and so have missed out on the Fairer Share payment.

James Blower said: Nationwide’s Fairer Share scheme pays out £100 to qualifying members. It did so in 2024 and its latest results, announced earlier this week, confirm that it will be doing so in 2025. 

The bonus is paid to members who hold a qualifying savings or mortgage account but crucially, they must also hold a qualifying current account. 

The reason for this is because I suspect that Nationwide wants to limit the payment to members who are more engaged with the mutual than those who merely have the odd savings or mortgage product with them – perhaps one that they may not even be aware of, because they’ve gone via an adviser.

In the case of Junior Isas, the qualification is to also hold the qualifying children’s current account too. Your reader’s child has missed out because they didn’t also hold this account by the qualification date, which was 31 March, as it was last year.

My advice to any Nationwide members who did not qualify this year is, if they intend to stay a member, open the qualifying current account needed. Nationwide are encouraging members to switch their current account to them too – offering £200 bonus to customer who move over. 

This is well worth considering. Nationwide members have already received £50 for the Virgin Money takeover this year – so some members could benefit from £350 in cash this year with that bonus, Fairer Share and the £200 incentive. Certainly worth considering

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