NatWest Select and Reward Review: Is the £200 Switch Worth It?

NatWest is National Westminster Bank Plc, part of NatWest Group along with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS); the switch terms say Ulster Bank is a business name of NatWest itself. They give its Financial Services Register number as 121878 and say it is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the FCA and the PRA.

Eligible deposits are protected by the FSCS up to £120,000 per person. NatWest's FSCS sheet says that limit is shared across NatWest, NatWest Premier, Ulster Bank, NatWest Boxed, First Active and Mettle, so money held with several of those brands adds up to one limit, not several. RBS is not on that list.

It is a high-street bank, so alongside the app, Online Banking and phone banking you can use a branch or pay cash in at a participating Post Office.

The offer covers two accounts. Select has no monthly fee. Its debit card does contactless payments up to £100, and NatWest promises to refund money a fraudster takes from the account if you bank online or in the app and kept your security details safe. The app adds a free credit score (from TransUnion) and Round Ups into savings, and NatWest customers can get Rooster Money, a pocket-money account for children aged 6 to 17, without its usual £19.99 a year subscription. We couldn't find a credit interest rate for Select on NatWest's pages, so don't expect the balance to earn anything.

Reward costs £2 a month. It pays £4 a month in Rewards if two or more Direct Debits of at least £2 each go out of the account, and you must also pay £1,250 into an eligible NatWest account every month to earn them. Partner retailers add more Rewards, with offers that change every two weeks. You can exchange Rewards from £5, as money into your account, e-gift codes or a charity donation; money can take up to 5 working days to arrive. Card spending abroad has no foreign transaction fee, but cash withdrawals abroad still cost 2.75%. You can hold one Reward account in your name and one in joint names.

NatWest also sells Reward Silver (£12 a month) and Reward Platinum (£23 a month), packaged versions with insurance and lifestyle benefits. The switch offer names Select and Reward, so that is what this review covers. Premier accounts are not part of this offer.

You need to be a UK resident who didn't hold a NatWest current account on 6 May 2026. Open a Select or Reward account, then request a full switch with the Current Account Switch Service (CASS), online or in the app, from a current account at a bank outside NatWest, RBS and Ulster Bank. The switch has to close the old account and move its payments. Within 60 days of the switch completing, pay in £1,250 and log in to the NatWest mobile app. NatWest pays £200 into the account within 30 calendar days of you finishing.

The £1,250 can be one payment or several, and each has to stay in the account for at least 24 hours. Money moved across by the switch counts, so if your old account has £1,250 or more in it on switch day, that balance can cover the pay-in on its own. On a Reward account, the £1,250 you pay in each month to earn Rewards counts too: you don't need to find £2,500. The 60 days run from the switch completing, not from your application, so make any extra payments and the app login on or after the day it completes. The login has to be in the mobile app, on any device that supports it; the app needs a compatible iOS or Android device and a UK mobile number or an international one from a supported country.

The account must still be open when NatWest pays, and it must not have been changed to a Student, Graduate, Foundation, Reward Black, Premier Select or Premier Reward account. Changing to another NatWest current account is otherwise allowed. There is one bonus per person, even if you open more than one account.

NatWest publishes no end date and can change, replace or withdraw the offer at any time. If it withdraws the offer after you have applied to switch, the terms say you will still be entitled to it.

The eligibility rules are stricter than the tasks. You can't get the £200 if you have ever received cash from a NatWest, RBS or Ulster Bank switch offer, however long ago, or if anyone on the account has. Nor can you if you held a NatWest current account on 6 May 2026. Former customers who had closed their NatWest current account before then may be eligible, as long as they haven't had a group switch bonus.

The switch itself has to qualify. Switching from another NatWest account, RBS or Ulster Bank doesn't count. A partial switch, where your payments move but the old account stays open, doesn't count. Nor does an account at a bank that isn't part of CASS; NatWest says over 50 UK banks and building societies have signed up, but an account abroad can't be switched this way. If you have just moved to the UK and have no UK current account yet, you have nothing to switch from.

A joint account can only switch to another joint account, and both holders have to agree to it.

On Select, the £200 is the value, with no monthly fee to set against it. The cost is the effort and losing your old account, so it suits a spare current account better than the one your life runs through.

On Reward, the first year comes to about £224: £200 from the switch plus £48 of Rewards (£4 for 12 months), less £24 of fees. That assumes two Direct Debits of at least £2 and £1,250 paid in every month. After the first year Reward nets £24 a year, plus fee-free card spending abroad. If you won't meet the monthly conditions, it is £24 a year for the travel perk alone.

On timing: if the switched balance covers the £1,250 and you log in to the app on switch day, the £200 should arrive within about six weeks of starting the switch. At the slowest, it is about 7 working days for the switch, up to 60 days for the tasks and up to 30 days for payment, so roughly 100 days.

Spending abroad. Select charges a 2.75% non-sterling transaction fee on card payments and cash withdrawals in a foreign currency, so £500 spent on holiday costs £13.75. Reward charges nothing on card payments abroad but still 2.75% on foreign cash withdrawals, and local machines may add their own fees. If you travel on Select, carry a no-fee card for spending abroad.

Overdraft. An arranged overdraft, if you are approved, costs 39.49% EAR variable (representative APR 39.49% on an assumed £1,200 limit). There is no fee, only interest: NatWest's own example puts £500 at £3.24 for 7 days, £13.87 for 30 days and £28.13 for 60 days. Applying for one means a credit check that is recorded on your credit file and could affect it. An overdraft on your old account doesn't move with the switch, so arrange it before you rely on it.

Going over. Unarranged overdrafts charge interest at the same 39.49% EAR. If NatWest refuses a payment because there isn't enough money, the unpaid transaction fee is £1.55, charged at most once per monthly charging period; there is no fee when it lets a payment through. Unarranged overdraft interest and unpaid transaction fees together are capped at £18.80 a month on standard adult accounts. A same-day CHAPS payment to another bank costs £23.

The Fee Information Document linked from the Select and Reward pages is an older edition (its Reward page is dated October 2023) that still shows a 2.75% fee on Reward card spending abroad and lower Silver and Platinum fees. The October 2026 edition on natwest.com matches the live product pages, and that is the one we used.

CASS usually takes 7 working days. You pick a switch date, normally a working day. By day 3 the new account is set up and payments such as your salary and bills are moved across; on day 7 the balance arrives and the old account closes. You can keep using the old account, including its card, up to and including day 6.

The switch moves your balance, payees, Direct Debits, standing orders and salary, and redirects future payments made to the old account. Under the Current Account Switch Guarantee, any charges or interest caused by a switch going wrong are refunded. Direct Debits and standing orders won't show on the NatWest account until their first payment goes out.

It doesn't move arranged overdrafts, regular payments taken from your old card (streaming subscriptions, for example), savings and loans, mobile payments, third-party apps you have given access to your data, or your transaction history. Update card subscriptions yourself and download old statements before day 7.

Once the switch has started you can't cancel it. If you chose a future switch date when you opened the account, you can cancel up to 7 days before it. You'll need your old bank's name, the account number and sort code, your debit card details, ID and proof of address.

You must be 18 or over and a UK resident. You can apply in the NatWest app or online; NatWest says the app is quicker. Its partner Mitek checks your identity by matching a photo ID (a passport, a UK, EU or EEA driving licence, or an EU or EEA national ID card) to a selfie, so you need a device with a camera. NatWest may also ask for proof of address, such as a utility bill, bank statement or council tax bill, and will ask about your nationality and where you pay tax.

If you have recently moved to the UK, NatWest's list of accepted ID includes a foreign passport with a visa, or an eVisa share code. You still need to live in the UK and may be asked to prove your address.

You get an instant decision, but if NatWest needs more information it can take 3 to 5 days for the account to be ready. The debit card should arrive within 3 to 5 working days of the account opening. NatWest's account pages don't say whether opening the account itself involves a credit search; applying for an overdraft does.

On 11 October 2026 the NatWest app was rated 4.8 from 1,157,339 ratings on the App Store and 4.7 from about 551,000 reviews on Google Play. NatWest's Trustpilot profile told a different story: 1.4 from 8,648 reviews, 86% of them one-star. Those reviews are about the bank as a whole, not just the app, and Trustpilot notes the profile is unclaimed and NatWest doesn't invite reviews, so they may not be representative.

The same themes come up again and again: the Cora chatbot doesn't solve the problem and it is hard to reach a person (NatWest says Cora can pass you to a colleague if needed); long phone queues and voice ID that fails; accounts or cards blocked without warning after fraud checks; trouble with ID checks when opening an account; branch closures; and an app balance that leaves out pending transactions and is slow to update. Former Sainsbury's Bank customers say their terms got worse after moving to NatWest.

For the bonus, that means keeping evidence: a screenshot of the switch completion message, the pay-ins and your app login date make a missing payment easier to chase.

Keep the account open, and on an eligible account type, until the £200 has arrived. On Reward, exchange your Rewards before you close: once the last account linked to MyRewards closes, you have 90 days to redeem the balance.

Bring the balance to £0 first, then close it in the app (open the current account and choose 'Close this Account'), through the form in Online Banking, or by calling 03457 888 444. A joint account that needs both signatures has to be closed in a branch. NatWest can't reopen an account or reverse a closure once you have asked, so be sure before you press the button.

Consider it if you have never had a switch bonus from NatWest, RBS or Ulster Bank, held no NatWest current account on 6 May 2026, and have a current account at another CASS bank you are happy to close. Choose Reward if your salary or other income already puts £1,250 a month into NatWest and you have two Direct Debits to move; otherwise Select does the job for free.

Skip it if you have ever had NatWest Group switch cash, if you want to keep your old account open, if you would mostly use the Select card abroad, or if you rely on reaching a person quickly by phone or chat.

Alternatives: RBS and Ulster Bank are in the same group, so a past bonus from either rules you out here and switching from them doesn't count. first direct, part of HSBC, currently pays £210 for accounts opened by 2 December 2026 (£175 after that, while it lasts) for a CASS switch with at least 2 Direct Debits or standing orders, £1,000 paid in, 5 or more card payments and a login, all within 45 days of opening. It excludes anyone who has held a first direct product or opened an HSBC current account since 1 January 2018. The two offers don't exclude each other, but each needs its own current account to switch from.