Banks don't want my custom it seems

noh

Naf wrote: »

Many people don't like accounts that can only be transacted online, or the fact they have to post ID, or the wait before the account is opened. Branches offer it all in one place, and the account is available to transact immediately.
...

Many people do like accounts that can be only transacted online.
Most if not all accounts that can be opened online do not require any ID to be posted and often the account is opened immediately with no wait.
The advantage of operating accounts this way is that there are no "advisers" to interfere with what the customer wants to do.

Naf wrote: »

. Plus the advisers know how to best help you get them most from the accounts.
...

Often the "advisers" know less about the accounts than the potential customers.
You have made two incorrect statements concerning Santander products in recent posts. Are you an "adviser" or a less well trained member of staff?

Naf

opinions4u wrote: »

Which branches have Lloyds sold to Santander? Not familiar with that one.

I don't know of specific Lloyds branches, I only meant the Halifax ones being sold, but I do know of Lloyds ones closing.

opinions4u wrote: »

Over the next few years I'd expect Santander to close half their network. In my view it makes absolute sense for them to do that. Watch the press exploit it for headlines though. Guaranteed.

Not going to happen. Santander are proud of the fact they have more branches than any other worldwide bank. Some may relocate to smaller locations; closures are extremely unlikely. But face it, with the number of branches there are now, plus RBS branches there's going to be no issue with too few branches for the amount of custom even if some did have to close.

opinions4u wrote: »

So Santander don't pay bonuses? I suppose they prefer nepotism of appointing the chairman's daughter to run their UK business.

So what if they did pay bonuses, which part of the business had to be bailed out by taxpayer handouts? Which shareholders' shares haven't risen in value? Even after paying whatever did get paid, they still have the best buy mortgages on the market every week, best buy awards for current accounts, excellent rates on savings and unrivalled loyalty offers. In addition to consistent growth year on year; so management deserve any bonus they got paid. My issue with Lloyds, HBOS, HSBC is that they've sunk the economy through irresponsible lending, taken taxpayer money they have no intention of paying back and not given any value back to their shareholders, and have no answer to give for themselves (the question was brought up in HSBC's AGM). You get paid what you're worth, and if you're not bringing value to your business you don't deserve to get any bonus. (Don't deserve to have the job at all if you ask me...)

opinions4u wrote: »

I highlight your use of the word guaranteed. The key facts document page 11 clarifies that the product doesn't even have the FSCS protection that a "normal" saver would expect.

FSCS guarantee is nonsense anyway, its already been proved the government will bail any bank out as opposed to paying all the savers their £85K each back because it's cheaper. The guarantee is a double-safety net that will never be used.
Santander offer a clever method of guaranteeing their own accounts, on top of their history of being a safe, secure place to deposit.

Naf

noh wrote: »

Many people do like accounts that can be transacted online.

Re-read my post; I said accounts that can only be transacted online. My experience is that people won't take an account if they can't get at it any other way for anything other than a few bits and pieces that are used day to day.

noh wrote: »

Often the "advisers" know less about the accounts than the potential customers.

Customers who have taken accounts they chose themselves 'off the shelf' almost invariably come into branch asking to do things they can't do on the account they've opened. I see four or five of them every day.

noh

Naf wrote: »

Re-read my post; I said accounts that can only be transacted online. My experience is that people won't take an account if they can't get at it any other way for anything other than a few bits and pieces that are used day to day.



Customers who have taken accounts they chose themselves 'off the shelf' almost invariably come into branch asking to do things they can't do on the account they've opened. I see four or five of them every day.

I will edit my previous post to say "only"

I would suggest that the 4 or 5 you see every day are a very small minority either that or Santander haven't set up their systems very effectively.

opinions4u

Naf wrote: »

I don't know of specific Lloyds branches, I only meant the Halifax ones being sold, but I do know of Lloyds ones closing.

You said "Lloyds and Halifax have closed loads of agencies and local branches; sold off to Santander" - so which ones were sold to Santander?

Not going to happen. Santander are proud of the fact they have more branches than any other worldwide bank. Some may relocate to smaller locations; closures are extremely unlikely.

Closures are a certainty. Way too many duplicate branches in the same towns. It's when, not if.

So what if they did pay bonuses

You stated in your earlier post: "especially while HSBC, Lloyds, HBOS still manage millions in fat cat bonuses". I was merely pointing out that the same culture exists in Santander - although they are slightly less open about it due to softer stock market regulations in Spain.

Which shareholders' shares haven't risen in value? Even after paying whatever did get paid, they still have the best buy mortgages on the market every week, best buy awards for current accounts, excellent rates on savings and unrivalled loyalty offers.

Other banks can point to numerous awards won for this product, that product or the other product. It's called marketing.

As for share price increase, I think RBS can claim a 250% increase in share price since 2009. Can Santander?

In addition to consistent growth year on year; so management deserve any bonus they got paid. My issue with Lloyds, HBOS, HSBC is that they've sunk the economy through irresponsible lending

HBOS lent dreadfully, yes. Lloyds TSB and HSBC - I suggest you're talking tosh. Please can you provide examples of this.

taken taxpayer money

HSBC? Again, proof please. (I'll ignore the Special Liquidity Scheme, as Santander have made good use of this too).

they have no intention of paying back

Lloyds have repaid £90bn of the SLS money. The Government is free to sell it's shareholding at a point in time of it's own choosing. You are pedling untruths.

FSCS guarantee is nonsense anyway, its already been proved the government will bail any bank out as opposed to paying all the savers their £85K each back because it's cheaper.

But the specific investment we are talking about isn't covered by the FSCS Deposit Protection scheme. There's not a hope in hell that HM Government would reimburse those investments - indeed, if I've read Santander's documents correctly, it would be the authorities in Guernsey who would be responsible for making good any lost funds.

Tribulation

opinions4u wrote: »

One of the most common posts on here is "my bank has asked me in for a review". One of the most common responses is "they're just trying to sell you something - don't attend". Yet one common outcome of such reviews is "move your savings from this 0.1% taxable account to this 3.0% tax free account". Sometimes the bank can't win, can they?

Trouble is, most people would already have experienced the banking advisor asking them to review their current account, as I've already said, they take time off work/out of their day, go into the bank, only to get the person try to get them to take out a non free bank account where they get discounts to things they don't need or want.

Once that's happened just once to someone, once that person mentioned it to their friends and they have ALL experienced similar things, do you really think that any of us are going to take what you've said seriously.

I mean no personal disrespect when I say that, banks cant have it both ways. Either they are really looking out for us, they review peoples accounts and call in only those people whose money would be better invested elsewhere, or they act as they currently are, which appears to the vast majority of people that they simply want to get some commission for hitting a sales target.

stringer_bell

Tribulation wrote: »

Trouble is, most people would already have experienced the banking advisor asking them to review their current account, as I've already said, they take time off work/out of their day, go into the bank, only to get the person try to get them to take out a non free bank account where they get discounts to things they don't need or want.

Once that's happened just once to someone, once that person mentioned it to their friends and they have ALL experienced similar things, do you really think that any of us are going to take what you've said seriously.

I mean no personal disrespect when I say that, banks cant have it both ways. Either they are really looking out for us, they review peoples accounts and call in only those people whose money would be better invested elsewhere, or they act as they currently are, which appears to the vast majority of people that they simply want to get some commission for hitting a sales target.

yep, my experience with my bank as I'm a high earner isn't too good either. Always ringing asking for a review, often to sell me tat that I don't need, such as the Barclays 5 year bond etc

The relationship manager even told me on the phone not to buy my house outright with cash, but to get a offset mortgage instead. This was after I told him I was self employed and prefer to have the house paid for in case everything went wrong with business

My experience is that they are just looking to flog stuff, all the time

rockitup

opinions4u wrote: »

But the specific investment we are talking about isn't covered by the FSCS Deposit Protection scheme. There's not a hope in hell that HM Government would reimburse those investments - indeed, if I've read Santander's documents correctly, it would be the authorities in Guernsey who would be responsible for making good any lost funds.

Naf wrote: »

FSCS guarantee is nonsense anyway, its already been proved the government will bail any bank out as opposed to paying all the savers their £85K each back because it's cheaper. The guarantee is a double-safety net that will never be used.
Santander offer a clever method of guaranteeing their own accounts, on top of their history of being a safe, secure place to deposit.

These GEB/Structured products whatever you like to call them are just cleverly advertised to let the customer think that their money is safe. One of these was sold to a family member by an Abbey National adviser around the time of the late 2008 financial crisis not many weeks after Lehman Brothers had folded and AIG had to be rescued.

I suggested to her to cancel it as it was still within the 7 day notice period, reason? because the "guarantee" was offered by Abbey National Insurance Services. So with so many banks and insurance companies folding at that time she didn't feel so secure. The point was that she was told "Don't worry, your money is guaranteed - you will not lose anything unless the market the investment is tied to loses 50%" Nothing about the guarantee being written by a subsidiary of Abbey National. I pointed out that if Abbey folds what chance is there of their own insurance company being able to pay out. Anyway she took my advice and invested in a mix of unit trusts and has only last week cashed these in and collected a return of 74%. As I told her why tie your money up for 5.5 years and face the chance of seeing any accumulated gains being washed down the pan if the markets take another dive in the last 6 months. Also no dividends are paid out on these investments as Opinions4u mentioned, the Santander one is shocking value. I hate to say it but even Barclays Capital had a much better offering at the time with 4 times the growth in the FTSE, capped at 100% over the term, but even that one could suffer the same fate if the market dived near the end of the term.

There was a great post on this forum some time ago about depositing some cash into a fixed rate bond for 5 years and the rest into a FTSE tracker fund (which does pay dividends, unlike the GEB's). In my opinion this is far better than what the banks offer with GEB's/Structured products

Naf

[QUOTE=noh;44186166I_would_suggest_that_the_4_or_5_you_see_every_day_are_a_very_small_minority[/QUOTE]

Not the impression I get; when customers pick their own account they primarily look at the rate, and if it's instant access or not. Anything else, like counter service, ATM availability, third-party transfers/cheques, cash withdrawal limits seem to get overlooked. I get customers with eSavers coming to branch over and over wanting cash over the counter; which we can't do as its an online only account, people with ISAs they opened online but never read the HMRC

opinions4u wrote: »

You said "Lloyds and Halifax have closed loads of agencies and local branches; sold off to Santander" - so which ones were sold to Santander?

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/savings-and-banking/article.html?in_article_id=519790&in_page_id=7
Technically they were Halifax branded agencies, but they're still part of the Lloyds group network. Santander have bought some up, made them full functioning branches.

opinions4u wrote: »

Closures are a certainty. Way too many duplicate branches in the same towns. It's when, not if.

I'll refer you back to the article I just linked; Santander are constantly looking to increase their branch network. As I said, branches may relocate to give more local counter service, highly unlikely any will close outright.

opinions4u wrote: »

You stated in your earlier post: "especially while HSBC, Lloyds, HBOS still manage millions in fat cat bonuses". I was merely pointing out that the same culture exists in Santander - although they are slightly less open about it due to softer stock market regulations in Spain.

Yes, but Santander show continuous growth so why shouldn't those leading it be entitled to their bonus.
HSBC AGM:
http://robinhoodtax.org/latest/entering-belly-beast-robin-heads-hsbc-agm

• Shareholder just asked chair of HSBC board how he can justify his 4 million pound basic salary when he oversaw subprime investment

• Unite rep just asked the chief exec to give up his bonus to give it to HSBC staff at the bottom on 13,000 pounds a year

• Stuart gulliver CEO (salary 11 million quid) ducks question on giving his bonus away. Perhaps he is a bit strapped this year

• Questioner calls salaries 'wildly excessive' and 'obscene' and gets applause from shareholders
• For the last five years we have been paying you all for failure- how greedy can this board be?' Great question.
• One in five shareholders vote against the bonuses and exec pay- a record high
• This company has not created shareholder value for a decade yet bonuses still paid
• Even non-executive HSBC directors get 95,000 pounds a year, a 50 percent pay increase!

Not a picture of happy Shareholders, and they didn't take any government handouts, dread to think how the others' AGMS go...

opinions4u wrote: »

HBOS lent dreadfully, yes. Lloyds TSB and HSBC - I suggest you're talking tosh. Please can you provide examples of this.

Lloyds own HBOS; one's lending is the other's lending.
Once again, I'll refer you back to my previous link; 'subprime lending'. Better business practise would continue to add value for shareholders, even if not every year then at least some in ten...

opinions4u wrote: »

HSBC? Again, proof please. (I'll ignore the Special Liquidity Scheme, as Santander have made good use of this too).

Santander don't need the SLS, but having more liquid assets allows you to make more money, so why not? Their use of the scheme was purely a business strategy, not a necessity to survive.

opinions4u wrote: »

Lloyds have repaid £90bn of the SLS money. The Government is free to sell it's shareholding at a point in time of it's own choosing. You are pedling untruths.

The SLS doesn't count as it's obligatory to pay it back within 3 years. The £37billion of taxpayers money that has been poured in has been, in my opinion, taken very much for granted. Why haven't the banks made any offers to even begin buying back the nation's shareholding? Either because they're too strapped to afford it, or because the execs are too greedy.

opinions4u wrote: »

But the specific investment we are talking about isn't covered by the FSCS Deposit Protection scheme. There's not a hope in hell that HM Government would reimburse those investments - indeed, if I've read Santander's documents correctly, it would be the authorities in Guernsey who would be responsible for making good any lost funds.

You're right, its not, because Santander guarantee it themselves. Nothing to do with the DGS in Guernsey. Santander UK has a separate subsidiary on Guernsey who holds customers deposited funds. Santander UK guarantees the liquidity of the subsidiary, and the subsidiary guarantees the funds of the GGP customers. The subsidiary on Guernsey is within the ring-fenced system of Santander UK, but also separately ring-fenced from the rest of Santander UK's business; so the deposited funds cannot be taken out of it for any other reason than to pay back to the customer. For the customers to lose their initial deposit both Santander UK, and the deposit subsidiary would have to go under simultaneously, but as the subsidiary exists solely to hold the deposits there's no real way it could go under, plus Santander's market history stands it in good stead to guarantee the lot anyway. The two guarantee each other so the customers' funds are not at risk.

rockitup wrote: »

These GEB/Structured products whatever you like to call them are just cleverly advertised to let the customer think that their money is safe. One of these was sold to a family member by an Abbey National adviser around the time of the late 2008 financial crisis not many weeks after Lehman Brothers had folded and AIG had to be rescued.

With Santander the customers' money is safe, probably why it's not called a GEB in the advertising. Refer you back above.
These products offer customers something between instant access accounts that lose out long term due to inflation, versus potentially inflation beating investments, but with risk to their funds. The return on the GGP products generally finishes ahead of inflation, although not as far as risk-based investments can.

rockitup

Naf wrote: »

You're right, its not, because Santander guarantee it themselves. Nothing to do with the DGS in Guernsey. Santander UK has a separate subsidiary on Guernsey who holds customers deposited funds. Santander UK guarantees the liquidity of the subsidiary, and the subsidiary guarantees the funds of the GGP customers. The subsidiary on Guernsey is within the ring-fenced system of Santander UK, but also separately ring-fenced from the rest of Santander UK's business; so the deposited funds cannot be taken out of it for any other reason than to pay back to the customer. For the customers to lose their initial deposit both Santander UK, and the deposit subsidiary would have to go under simultaneously, but as the subsidiary exists solely to hold the deposits there's no real way it could go under, plus Santander's market history stands it in good stead to guarantee the lot anyway. The two guarantee each other so the customers' funds are not at risk.



With Santander the customers' money is safe, probably why it's not called a GEB in the advertising. Refer you back above.
These products offer customers something between instant access accounts that lose out long term due to inflation, versus potentially inflation beating investments, but with risk to their funds. The return on the GGP products generally finishes ahead of inflation, although not as far as risk-based investments can.

Banks can dream up any name they wish to market what is commonly known as a "structured product". GGP. GEB et al, there is not much difference between them.

As far as useful guarantees there have been a couple that I heard of where the initial capital invested was guaranteed by FSCS but I forget the name of that product. Something like a deposit guaranteed effort.

Now back to the Santander guarantee, if they ring fence the money into a seperate scheme how the hell do they make the money grow to match the growth in the relevant index? If I recall correctly the banks and insurance companies that offered structured products used some of the cash invested to buy futures and/or options. This is what I read in many investment columns over the last 10 years or so. Please tell us if Santander can wave a magic wand and conjure up the growth out of thin air.

Finally and this is a big point, structured products under whatever name only have a decent chance of giving a "fair return" if the start date of the product is not when the markets are at a 2 year high like recently and looking very jittery as of this last couple of months. I would call people mad to invest into these right now, yes the better structured products out around late 2008/early 2009 were worth a gamble, but personally I would go with direct index tracker investment and collect the full growth WITH dividends (FTSE almost 4% a year) at a time to suit me, not possibly be tied in and watch it go down the pan towards the end of the fixed term in an SP.

Look forward to a detailed bit of evidence as to how good the santander guarantee really is, to me it sounds just like the Abbey National guarantee my relative was given. After all Santanders assets are mainly properties which have fallen in value both here and Spain. None of us know what will happen to house prices in next couple of years, maybe potential buyers will still pay over the top prices for their homes but there might, just might be a real downturn in the general economy that could hit home a lot harder than expected. I hope it doesn't turn too nasty but who knows, more banks could fail yet, none of them are too big not even Santander:o