Alliance and Leicester to become Santander

carlw

Hi All

I’m sure we all knew that Santander had bought, Abbey, Alliance and Leicester, and the savings part of Bradford and Bingley and was in the process of rebranding them all as Santander. What i hadn’t considered was the effect this would have on their terms and conditions.

I have a joint account with Abbey, which should not be effected, but my main bank account is with Alliance and Leicester, which i moved to because of the cheap overdraft fees (50p per day up to a max of £5).

Is it likely that as Santander rebrand these banks they will attempt to reduce the number of different bank accounts available, and as a result remove the cheap overdraft facility?

ses6jwg

I'm not sure, I believe A&L are running two computer systems at the moment, the switchover is November time IIRC.

cannonball_2

Funny enough I was thinking the same thing the other day so I rang them on that freephone number (0800 015 0964) about the merger. The chap said that if it all went smoothly, it would be the end of the year before I was signing into the Santander website for online banking and he didnt expect any changes to terms of accounts for a while, maybe 12 -18 months. They have problems because of A&L's 9 digit account number he said which makes it more difficult to integrate the systems. He said it was likely that at some point they would change the accounts to come into line with Santander's own at the moment so how long The Premier Account will last is anybody's guess? He also said that they had a heck of a lot of people on the Premier Account and it was unlikely they would want to upset all of them by radically changing their terms and conditions...but I think that was his opinion to be honest. :huh:

zx2011

A & L will be Santander from 28 May 2010. At least this is their plan anyway.

Here's an extract from the proposed transfer:
Alliance & Leicester plc (“Alliance & Leicester”) has been part of the Santander Group since 2008. We are proposing to transfer Alliance & Leicester’s business into Santander UK plc (“Santander”) with effect from on or about 28 May 2010 (the “Proposal”).
Our intention is to bring Abbey, the Bradford & Bingley savings business and Alliance & Leicester together under the Santander name. The first step of this process was completed in January this year when Abbey and the Bradford & Bingley savings business were re-branded as Santander.
The next step is to integrate the Alliance & Leicester business with Santander. Once this integration is completed, customers of all three businesses will have the benefit of being part of Santander with access to the full Santander product range and over 1,300 branches in the United Kingdom.

tgon

I certainly cant see like for like between the two site's products. I wonder where the "benefit" bit is hiding?

MarkBargain

I joined A&L recently to get travel insurance. Is the free insurance likely to continue? Is it worth sticking with them or closing the account?