Santander Customers - Make 2011 a year to move banks

davidlizard

Whilst I have not had any problems with them (except when they were the alliance and leicester they made a total hash of switching my account to them) I am looking to switch elsewhere for the reason that I want to bank with a British owned bank - I don't want my cash to prop up the spanish.

ses6jwg

davidlizard wrote: »

Whilst I have not had any problems with them (except when they were the alliance and leicester they made a total hash of switching my account to them) I am looking to switch elsewhere for the reason that I want to bank with a British owned bank - I don't want my cash to prop up the spanish.

what a load of tosh.

Santander UK is a separate entity from Banco Santander and operates under a UK banking license. All deposits taken in from UK savings are lent out as UK mortgages and loans.

Regardless of this, around 28% of the entire BA portfolio is actually based in Spain the rest is split between the UK, Germany, USA and Latin America.

Good luck finding a "British" bank as its unlikely you'll find one. Maybe a building society.

And FYI, you probably don't hold any accounts with Bank of Ireland, but here is some news for you, plenty of your cash is being used right now to "prop up" the Irish.

scott_lithgows

davidlizard wrote: »

Whilst I have not had any problems with them (except when they were the alliance and leicester they made a total hash of switching my account to them) I am looking to switch elsewhere for the reason that I want to bank with a British owned bank - I don't want my cash to prop up the spanish.

As above,you will need to look at a Building Society then.I always find it strange that the British will support their local football team,their Country at football but will not support their local Building Society !!!!

divadwem1

After over 20 good years with Alliance & Leicester I despair at the fiasco called Santander.

From the start of the banks transfer to Santander I have experienced 25 failures of service (and still counting). The latest is a cheque book made out with the correct account details, but in the wrong name. Complains are pointless as the so called bank does not even follow it's own complaints procedure.

soupdragon10

Since becoming Santander my local branch has been refurbished twice. Initially they cut us down to one cahier position, a phone and an extra machine for deposits/issuing cash.

After a few months of queues out the door on Saturday morning (when those of us who work f/t go in most) they changed things again to have 3 cashier windows, machine but did away with the phone line (which I never saw anyone use). Trouble is there is still only one cashier working on Saturday.

Staff in branch are as helpful as they can be, but this doesn't make up for the abysmal waiting time, nor the problems with card issue (see separate post).

Just researching other accounts to transfer to.

Justicia

Joe65 wrote: »

It only has to happen once to see how little influence or discretion the Branch have to sort things out. They are wonderful, but powerless in dealing with the central bureaucracy that's now prevails. Better to get out now or wait until it happens to you ?

I have had accounts with some of the other major banks (in fact, still do with one other) and did have issues with those (NatWest being terrible to bank with at the time), and Santander have been fine for the years I've banked with them - if I took your advice I wouldn't be banking with any banks at all.

I'll stick, thanks

Stalkdog

Joined Alliance and Leicester a few years ago, which worked great in my experience. Not suffered any particular problems with Santander other than hiking my Credit Card interest to an incredible 35% for no apparent reason. However, I'm almost thankful that they did because it gave me the motivation to pay it all off and move my current account to a more profitable Halifax account!