Nationwide's Dominic West adverts banned by regulator

A television commercial by Nationwide Building Society that satirised branch closures by rival banks has been banned in its current form by the advertising regulator for misleading consumers.

The Advertising Standards Authority investigated the Nationwide commercials, which aired last autumn and starred the actor Dominic West as an arrogant bank boss. The ASA received 282 complaints, including from Santander UK, which was referenced in the advert alongside Lloyds Banking Group and its Bank of Scotland and Halifax brands, NatWest, Barclays and HSBC.

The ad included the claim by Nationwide that “unlike the big banks we’re not closing our branches”.

This was misleading, the regulator ruled, because the building society had recently shut sites and had closed more branches than Santander in the 12 months before