Natwest safe deposit box is indefinitely parked. Banks are exiting the service due to cost while independent providers like Stonewall Vaults stand as a great alternative for safety deposit box customers. If you’re moving from NatWest to Stonewall Vaults, you will be eligible for 10% discount. Click here to book an appointment.
Safety deposit services have long been notable bank products and those that retail and private bank customers turn to for securing their valuables. Important documents, heirlooms and expensive jewellery, iconically portrayed in the movies, are popular candidates for safe custody storage. When you think of a bank vault, do you picture this? – an 8ft thick-walled building, a foot-long access key with a brave, and smartly dressed nighttime guard who ensured valuables and the centre remained impenetrable.
Not anymore…as the internet broke the mould of customer habits and fewer and fewer people needed to visit a branch, banking priorities and therefore the focus of their budgets shifted. If you have a bank account these days you can’t fail to notice the, almost, daily improvement in online safety or that there a now only a handful of staff in the branch. Not to mention the continual spending on cyber and data safety that goes on behind the scenes. A new demand is with us and banks are left with the choice of maintaining their traditional infrastructure, building portfolio and staffing levels or focusing on protecting our money and investments through cyber security. Although a bitter pill to swallow, walking away from the former was the only real choice to future-proof their businesses.
Investing in strong digital infrastructure has left banks dragging their feet in the safe storage market their stated reasons being: (i) the service is expensive to operate (ii) it is a non-core bank service (iii) if continued (unprioritised) could cost more banks their goodwill. For most banks, running a safety deposit service is, simply, no longer attractive. Some have reorganised the service to look like an independent offering but customers who have historically used bank safes as an add-on service are reluctant to pay the additional cost.
NatWest was eulogised for its innovative approach to resuscitating the service when in 2016 it opened a fully-automated safety deposit facility in its Gramby Street Branch in Leicester – prevalently dominated by the Asian and Indian communities that currently are the stronghold of the market for safety deposit boxes. Yet it seems things aren’t going the bank’s way, and it has now – like a number of them, bid farewell to its safety deposit service.
As more banks give up on this service, safety deposit customers who live or work in London or Manchester where Lloyds and Halifax still have a centre are left with a shrinking supply. Others now have to choose between storing their valuables in their home safe or turning to independent providers. If you decide to use a home safe, Secured by Design is a great place for ideas on how to design your home so that your valuables are protected against burglars. Be prepared to ‘dig deep’ as you would have to consider surveillance systems and redesigning your home. Will it work? Maybe, possibly, probably. Will ants always find spilt sugar – definitely!
For bank customers, the price tag independent providers put on their boxes may seem high but consider what makes a safety deposit service what it is; a purpose-built, secure facility with unrestricted access and quintessential customer service. For Clare, our Director at Stonewall Vaults, “running a safe deposit service is more about our drive to extend our security service to those vulnerable to a home invasion. As a first-hand victim of burglary, I and Martin wanted to use our secure storage service to tell burglars that it’s time for a career change as people’s valuables are now in secured coffers”.
If you live or work close to independent vaults, you may be pleasantly surprised at the affordability of the service. An annual cost of safety deposit boxes from independent providers would normally range from £150 (or £12.50/month) for a 7 litres small box to £660 (or £55/month) for a 43-litre large box. Securing your valuables for as little as £12.5/month is a small price to pay, and getting personalised service with easy access and longer opening hours independent centres provide is just another reason to transfer your valuables from the closing NatWest safe deposit box to a Stonewall Vaults’ box.