media

When it comes to awards and nominations we're usually there or thereabouts - which is gratifying. Here's a list of recent ones:

• Moneywise Mortgage Awards
  Highly commended, Best Lender for Current Account Offset Mortgages (July 2007)
  
• Yorkshire and Humber Contact Centre Network Awards
  People Award. The award recognises employers that demonstrate initiatives to support achievement, recognition and growth for their people. These inaugural awards were a showcase event for the contact centre industry in Yorkshire, highlighting examples of excellence and leading edge thinking (July 2007)
  
• Moneyfacts Awards
  Commended, Best Money Interest Account Provider (June 2007)
  
• Mother at Work Awards
  The Employer of the Future. This award recognises employers that strive to achieve a work-life balance approach that benefits their people, especially working mothers (June 2007)
  
• What Mortgage Magazine
  Winner, Best Direct Lender over 5 years (February 2007)
  
• Review Centre Award
  Winner for best internet banking service. The Review Centre Awards are awarded to current products and services in the market based upon user ratings that are submitted with customer reviews (December 2006)
  
• Direct Marketing Association Awards 2005 / 2006
  Winner of:
  
  • Gold awards for Financial Services and Consumer Direct Marketing (both high and low volume categories)
  • Silver award for Direct Marketing Copy
  • Bronze awards for Art Direction, Brand Building and Acquisition
• Your Money Awards
  Winner, Best Online ISA Provider (July 2006)
• Sunday Times 100 Best Companies 2006
  With on-site masseur, concierge, car servicing and laundry to name but a few of the services provided to employees based both at Leeds and Hamilton, it's little wonder that first direct has won a coveted place in the prestigious Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work for 2006 list.
  Compiled by workplace engagement specialists Best Companies on behalf of The Sunday Times, the list is based on research surveys on how employees feel about their organisation. 91% of the final score is from employee feedback with the remainder based on company benefits and practices
  
• What Mortgage Magazine
  Winner, Best Direct Lender over 2 and 10 Years (February 2006)
• Caples Award 2005
  Winner of Consumer Direct Marketing Dimensional
• Campaign Magazine Award 2005
  Winner of Silver awards for:
  
  • Best Financial, Corporate and Utilities campaign
  • Best use of Art Direction
  Commendations for:
  
  • Best Use of Direct Mail to Consumers
  • Best Use of Copy
    
• Precision Marketing Magazine Award 2005
  Winner of:
  
  • Best Use of Art Direction
  • Best Financial Services
  • Direct Brand of the Decade
  2nd place:
  
  • Direct Brand of the Year
  3rd place:
  
  • Client Marketer of the Decade - Peter Simpson first direct Commercial Director
  Highly commended:
  
  • Best Direct Mail Initiative
    
• Online Finance Awards
  Winner, Best Online Bank or Building Society (November 2005)
• Guardian Consumer Finance Awards 2005
  Winner, Best Current Account Provider for the 4th consecutive year, Best Mortgage Provider for the second year running and Best Travel Insurance Provider
• Mortgage Advisor & Home Buyer Magazine
  Winner, Best Internet Lender for 2004. 'first direct offers a complete online mortgage service with excellent functionality and efficient administration that focuses on giving its customers affordable mortgage solutions. In addition, the flexible lender prides itself on offering market-leading rates and a detailed explanation of these is available on its website, as are the workings and benefits of an offset mortgage' (March 2005)
• Mortgage Magazine
  Winner, Best Offset Mortgage and Best Marketing Initiative (March 2005)
• Review Centre
  Winner, Best Bank 2004. Review Centre have been running the "Best in Class Awards" in order to recognise and reward the products and services that have provided outstanding value and customer service to their clients. We have proved to be very popular with reviewers who have scored first direct as being a ten out of ten performer (March 2005)
• Personal Finance & Savings Magazine
  Winner, Best Online Bank (March 2005)
• Marketing Week Best Awards
  Winner, Best Consumer Campaign for our "Customer Testimonials" work across our full range of press, TV and direct mail communications.
  Other shortlisted companies for this accolade were Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Glaxo SmithKline and Danone so we beat off some very strong opposition (March 2005)
• Revolution Awards 2005
  Winner, Best Interactive Service on Wireless Networks - text message banking (March 2005)
• What Mortgage Magazine
  Winner, Best National Lender Over 10 and 2 Years (February 2005)
• British Interactive Media Association Awards
  Winner, Best use of Mobile Services (November 2004)
• National Business Awards 2004
  Sponsored by Orange, these Awards have been referred to as the "Oscars of the Business World" by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. first direct won the "Customer Focus" Award as proof of our commitment to our customers. We were runners up for this Award for in 2003, so we're pleased and proud to have gone one better this year! (November 2004)
• Management Today/Unisys Service Excellence Awards 2004
  Winner, Service Excellence in Financial Services Category
  Winner, Overall for Service Excellence
  These Awards were judged by a Panel of highly respected individuals from industry and business in the UK. Not only did first direct win the Award for financial services, but we also scooped the overall Service Excellence accolade from within many other categories including retail, business to business, public sector and manufacturing/engineering (September 2004)
• Guardian Consumer Finance Awards 2004
  Winner, Best Current Account Provider
  Winner, Best Mortgage Provider
  Readers of the Guardian, the Observer, Money Observer and Guardian unlimited, voted on the best financial services providers. first direct won two categories and were finalists in the savings account, credit card, travel insurance and share dealing categories
• Mortgage Advisor & Home Buyer Magazine
  Winner, Best Internet Lender (August 2004)
• Virtual Online Banking Survey (VOBS)
  First place, online banking satisfaction and first place, overall opinion of bank websites (June 2004)
• Personal Finance Readership Awards 2004
  Winner, Best Customer Service (May 2004)
• Virtual Online Banking Survey (VOBS)
  First place, online banking satisfaction and first place, overall opinion of bank websites (April 2004)
• Revolution Awards 2004
  Winner, Best Interactive Service on a Wireless Network (for our mobile marketing campaigns with email response) (March 2004)
• What Mortgage Magazine
  Winner, Best Direct Lender (February 2004)

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