Nationwide will contact regular passbook users via letter, phone and email from 31 July to inform them about the upcoming changes, an exclusive report from This is Money revealed.
The mutual will also help customers open a savings account with its new savings wallet.
An estimated 2% of its 16 million customers (320,000) continue to regularly use the passbook (at least six times per year), and can do so until February 2025.
A passbook savings account is a traditional savings account that comes with a physical notebook to keep track of transactions.
They’re designed to be used in a Nationwide branch, but new passbooks stopped being issued in April 2022.

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In September 2023, Leeds Building Society reaffirmed its commitment to keeping savings passbooks after Lloyds Banking Group angered unions when it announced plans to scrap all 3.1 million of them in a bid to reduce the number of counter transactions.
Passbook to savings wallet
As part of Nationwide’s move to “modernise” the passbook account, the savings wallet will have the same features but is designed to be quicker and easier to use, and can still be serviced in branch.
It will contain a card that can be used at branch counters in the same way that passbooks are used today. It will also provide a printed record of the member’s account in the form of stored mini statements.
Earlier this year, Nationwide renewed its branch promise (including Virgin Money), promising not to leave any town or city in which it is based until at least 2028.
A Nationwide spokesperson said: “We are modernising passbooks rather than removing them, but while they are changing, banking in branch isn’t. We are maintaining the benefits our passbook customers value most – face-to-face service and having a physical record of transactions.
“As the UK’s largest building society, we are investing in our systems so we can offer the products and services our customers expect from a modern mutual.”