We use technology that collects and retrieves information from your computer, smartphone or tablet’s browser when you visit and use our digital services (such as our websites). They can be cookies, or similar technologies such as pixels, tags or web beacons. As this technology is widely known as cookies, that’s how we’ll refer to them in this policy.
Some of these cookies are necessary to make an online service work, but for others we need your consent before we can collect information. If you decide to consent to these optional cookies, you can change your settings at any time.
Cookies are small pieces of information contained within the pages on our websites. They are placed on your computer, smartphone or tablet.
There are different types of cookies:
Session cookie – these are set to collect and send information to us for the length of time your browser is open on our website.
Persistent cookie – these stay on your device for longer to help us identify your device in the future and allow a user’s actions to be remembered. They each have their own timeframe for staying on your device.
First party cookie – these are placed on your device directly by the Nationwide Group.
Third party cookie – these are placed by a third party, such as an ad network, social media platform or search engine. It may result in additional cookies being set by that third party for their purposes.
Cookies and the data they collect
Depending on the digital service you are using and whether we have the permission to do so, we will use cookies to collect and retrieve the following:
Unique values so that our digital services know they are talking to your device
The time and date a device has used our websites, the content you viewed and how you reached us (via a search engine, for example)
The type of device you are using (such as a tablet or a computer)
The brand of device or browser (such as Apple, Android, Safari, Edge)
Inputs made and values submitted
General geographical location that people access from (such as city or town)
Your settings for our site
Identifiers such as Mortgage Number, Application Number, Device ID or IP Address that may allow the information collected to be linked to an individual
Where cookies collect information, which may be used to identify you, it will be used in accordance with our privacy policy.
Be assured that none of our cookies will collect or store any secure information about you (such as your password or memorable data).
How do we use cookies?
The Nationwide Group has 4 main categories of cookies:
Essential cookies
Customisation cookies
User experience cookies
Targeting and marketing cookies
We explain more about these in the following sections.
Essential cookies
These cookies make our website work properly, keep you safe and enable us to provide online services by:
Keeping your browsing sessions private
Allowing you to complete an application form
Making your time on our digital services run smoothly and securely
Letting us know whether cookies will work on your device
Ensuring we can comply with banking regulations
Ensuring we apply your preferences consistently
Although our cookie preferences centre won’t allow you to stop these cookies, your browser may. If your browser settings prevent these cookies we can't guarantee or predict how our websites will perform during your visit.
Without them, you won't be able to use any secure parts of the websites. We may also use these cookies to understand whether you intended to access our services if you clicked on a link from a partner website.
Customisation cookies
These cookies help personalise your experience by:
Remembering information such as your username when you log into certain pages
Managing when our online surveys are presented
Making our live Broker Chat functionality work
Customising how we display information online.
User experience cookies
These cookies help us to gain insight and improve how we do things by:
Understanding how our users engage with our services (for example, how you move through our website pages) and what technology they use (for example, people using their phone or a computer).
Measuring and understanding the performance of our digital services and their content to continuously make improvements.
Testing different versions of our digital services with different user groups to understand which is more favourable.
Linking interactions online with activity via our other channels (such as telephone) to ensure we make the user’s online experience easier.
Analysing individual and aggregated browsing actions and patterns (such as links that are clicked on) to better understand our users.
Informing our digital strategy.
We use Adobe, Kampyle and Contentsquare to support us with these activities. While these trusted third parties place and store the cookie on your device, they work like first party cookies. The information collected on behalf of the Nationwide Group is only used by us. Some of the cookies are persistent cookies. The information collected from these cookies is retained and used for up 2 years. After this time, it is securely deleted.
Targeting and marketing cookies
These cookies help us target our advertising and tailor our marketing both online and via other channels, so it is as relevant and helpful as possible by:
Sharing or highlighting specific content online or in other channels. This may include our digital services or other websites, social media and search engines.
Displaying the Nationwide Group adverts on other companies’ digital services based on the content you have viewed on our digital services
Ensuring you are shown our marketing at an appropriate time
Informing our marketing strategy by understanding how you interact with our online adverts
We use the trusted third parties in the following table. They deliver online advertising services by analysing the information collected to ensure the adverts we display on digital platforms are relevant to you and other users who may engage with our content in similar ways.
They do this by collecting details of when you viewed our website content after seeing one of our online adverts, or using information about the products and services you have taken out with us or shown interest in when browsing our digital services.
Third Party
Details of how user’s information is used and how they can opt out
You can also turn off targeting and marketing cookies from a wide range of specific companies by visiting Your Online Choices.
Just so you know, if you choose for us not to use targeting and marketing cookies, you may still see our adverts on social media, search engines and other websites, we just won’t have used cookies to tailor them to you.
Setting your cookie preferences
You can manage your cookie settings at any time.
Most web browsers also allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings.
Find out how to manage cookies on popular browsers:
Turn off targeting and marketing cookies from specific companies by visiting Your Online Choices.
Emails
The Nationwide Group adds cookies to the emails that we send. These help us to understand whether an email has been delivered and opened, and whether you clicked on any of the links in it.
We do this so we can gain insight and improve our communications. It also supports us in evidencing compliance with Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) requirements when we need to send you mandatory communications about your account or our service.
You may be able to prevent these cookies either through your web browser or email provider.
