No airs and graces: New NS&I boss Dax Harkins
It’s the nation’s savings bank which more than 24 million of us entrust to look after our hard-earned cash in these difficult times. Safe as houses. Yet despite our money pouring into its range of products in torrents, the Government-backed National Savings & Investments (NS&I) continues to disappoint — and attract criticism from some quarters.
Most of the opprobrium is from customers who have fallen victim to its creaky service — leaving them hanging on the phone for ages or having applications for products rejected. But it has also come from those who believe it is not doing enough for savers on the interest rate front.
None other than Lord Young, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury in David Cameron’s Coalition Government, took to the letter pages of a national newspaper last week to have a pop at NS&I’s savings rates. In response to Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt drawing up plans to force the big banks to pass on interest rate rises to customers, Lord Young wrote: ‘So when will he make his own bank — NS&I — do what he wants other banks to do?’
While NS&I pushed up rates in the wake of Lord Young’s tirade, they are still nowhere near good enough to bother Money Mail’s savings best buy table — compiled by Sylvia Morris.
So, given NS&I’s pivotal role in the savings market — setting the gold standard for banks and building societies to follow — should it be doing more for savers?
In effect, should it be leading the pack on rates and, as it clearly states in its recent annual report, be inspiring a ‘stronger savings culture’.
It’s the first question I bowl at Dax Harkins, the new 51-year old boss of the savings giant, in an exclusive interview for Money Mail.
Although you wouldn’t guess it from his Christian name (see box), Mr Harkins is a Liverpudlian through and through.
Despite living in London for nigh on 30 years, he maintains a healthy Scouse accent which he says is accentuated whenever he heads North to watch his football team Liverpool play.
In his eyes, manager Jurgen Klopp can do no wrong — he’s a genius. Shame he can’t quite say the same about the savings beast he now oversees.
While Mr Harkins is much younger than many of NS&I’s diehard savers, he has been at the savings bank for 20 years — acquiring knowledge along the way in key areas such as sales, product development and the outsourcing of back office functions.
He was given the numero uno job this March when chief executive Ian Ackerley retired after six years at the helm.
Mr Harkins is instantly likeable. There are no airs or graces about him. He’s obviously nervous — it’s his first interview with the Press — and he rattles off what he wants to say at machine-gun speed.
Premium Bond tables: Check who won big and how much they held in bonds
Payouts: The Premium Bond prize rate has seen seven increases in the last year, taking it to 4% – its highest level in 15 years
Yet everything he says seems heartfelt and he has a sense of humour — a character trait not normally associated with executives of savings organisations.
‘Yes, I saw that [Lord Young’s letter],’ he says when I challenge him on it. ‘There’s a lot of narrative on this important issue [savings rates] at the moment. But from my perspective, I’m proud about how responsive we’ve been in a really dynamic savings market.’
He then reels off at lightning speed a series of statistics to support what he just said: seven increases in the Premium Bond prize rate in the past year, taking it to its highest level (4 per cent) in 15 years; a record July prize pot of £373 million; another record pot in August; and rate increases on its range of variable rate savings accounts (the latest applying to Direct Saver and Income Bonds, pushed up soon to 3.4 per cent).
He’s not finished. ‘Look, we’ve reacted to interest rate changes in a timely way. Look, Premium Bonds, they are the nation’s favourite savings product by a long way.
‘I think we are encouraging the nation to save. We are being responsive. We are offering fair rates and that does help us to set the wider savings agenda.
‘Helping the nation to save is a core part of what we do.’
And just before I think he’s running out of steam on this issue, he has one last blast: ‘It’s difficult to ever do enough on the savings front.
‘But being responsive [as an organisation] is a key driver to encouraging people to save.’
Having got all that off his chest, he takes a big breath. Sermon over. I have a suspicion he has been rehearsing those lines for the past 24 hours.
Lagging inflation: Many critics believe NS&I is not doing enough for savers on the interest rate front
In Mr Harkins’s defence, the numbers contained in its weighty annual report indicate that NS&I is persuading people to save.
For example, in the year to April, it attracted net savings (deposits minus withdrawals) of £10 billion — above the upper target of £9 billion set by the Government. And for the year ahead, its upper target is higher — £10.5 billion.
In contrast, the big banks are bleeding deposits — and rightly so, given the appalling rates they pay many loyal savers.
Sadly, NS&I is not always good at handling the money that pours through its doors (primarily online or electronically) — or for that matter when savers rush for the exit. It can create the potential for acute customer service problems at its contact centres — all UK-based.
In 2020, Money Mail’s sister section in The Mail on Sunday (Wealth & Personal Finance) elicited a ‘really, really sorry’ from the then NS&I boss Mr Ackerley after presenting him with a pile of correspondence from readers, unhappy with the service they had received.
Boss asks me: Who’s your mole!
Suspicions: Harkins is convinced we have a mole inside NS&I
Dax Harkins is convinced that I have a mole inside NS&I. This is because I have regularly been successful in predicting increases in the Premium Bond prize rate days before they happen.
He says: ‘Yes, I have asked my team: who is the leak? I open your newspaper and read that the prize rate is rising before we have officially announced it. If it’s not a mole, then you seem to have worked out some system that tells you when we are moving on rates. Let me know your secret.’
NS&I’s latest accounts state that Mr Harkins earned between £180,000 and £185,000 in the year to April.
But only one month was spent as chief executive. This year, he is likely to get closer to the £300,000 his predecessor Ian Ackerley earned.
Mr Harkins (whose first name comes from a character in a 1960s Harold Robbins novel) was introduced to Premium Bonds aged six, when he won a painting competition (he drew a picture of the Queen arriving in Liverpool in a gold carriage).
The £50 Premium Bond prize was presented to him by Ken Dodd.
When Mr Harkins became NS&I chief executive in March, he had to sell all his holdings. ‘It was painful,’ he says. ‘Happy memories.’
Yet issues still linger. In May this year, Money Mail revealed that many customers ringing NS&I with queries were kept on hold for more than 30 minutes, some then being cut off.
It was a service meltdown on a par with that experienced by users of the self-assessment tax helpline operated by Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs.
We also reported on customers being locked out of their online accounts after failing new security measures — and applications for Premium Bonds (often made on behalf of children) being rejected without explanation.
NS&I’s latest results confirm that it missed its target for customer satisfaction in the last year — with overall satisfaction levels of 74 per cent, below the target of 84 per cent.
There is no ‘really, really sorry’ moment this time around, although Mr Harkins does immediately offer an apology when I challenge him on the organisation’s recurring customer service issues.
‘I will never be happy if we fail to achieve any target,’ he says. ‘Customer service is key for us. I know some [people] haven’t got the service they expect and we aspire to.’
He then adds: ‘To all those readers who have been impacted [by poor service], I want to apologise personally. We are absolutely focused on improving our service.’ It’s an apology made with meaning.
Reassuringly, he says that in June, calls have been taking on average 34 seconds to answer — with more than 85 per cent picked up within 30 seconds.
Like many businesses, Mr Harkins says issues surrounding both staff retention and recruitment have impaired customer service standards.
Although the four contact centres — located in Birkenhead, Durham, Glasgow and Lytham St Annes — are managed on NS&I’s behalf by French outsourcing giant Atos and will remain so until March 2025, he says any blame lies squarely at NS&I’s door.
‘Yes, Atos are our outsourcers,’ he says. ‘But if we don’t hit our customer service targets, we have to own that.
‘We need to keep improving customer service. We want to be more responsive to customers, and as a business be more scalable, nimble and adaptable.
‘We need to ensure NS&I continues to help the nation to save.’
It’s a final message delivered with feeling — and he obviously means it.
But at the end of the day, NS&I’s impact on the nation’s propensity to save will not be determined by Mr Harkins alone.
As Lord Young says, it will be decided by its political masters.
