Santander - New UI for paying existing payee

someone

Without notice it seems that Santander are making payments to existing payee use their "improved" UI. Santander is my main account and over the years I've accumulated many payees (mostly to the best rate savings accounts and other current accounts opened for special offers). I've always kept a record of the mandate number for each account added and used that to find the correct payee. Now I have to wade through accounts all with the same payee name! Feels like we have gone backwards not forwards with this change.

Lightning360

If we are looking at the same thing, it's been like this for a while. I have the references as a clear thing to see which account is which so I'm not finding it difficult to use.

Daliah

I am not sure what they have changed but the handling of payees in both, online banking and in the app is nothing short of pathetic. If it wasn't for the DD cashback, and my 123 still being my reliable hub account after many years, I could easily just ditch the account. 

molerat

You can set the payee name to anything you like.  You will get a warning that the sky will fall in as the names don't match but you can override that.

soulsaver

I've never relied the Santander mandate number, as I've never seen any commitment for the bank to maintain its stability/continuity. 

So as some of the above indicate, I add an identifier to the end of my ac name when paying to my ac at another institution, so I can track which is which in the SO/payee list without having to drill down to the references - ie s.oulsaver vmhbs5.

I get the mismatch message but ignore it.. so it is as it was before the COP. 

My (other) gripe is, whilst before COP an existing payee could be also be used for the set up of Standing Orders, now you must re-key all the details.
That seems like a bigger risk of a typo than using proven existing data.

Daliah

soulsaver said:

My (other) gripe is, whilst before COP an existing payee could be also be used for the set up of Standing Orders, now you must re-key all the details.
That seems like a bigger risk of a typo than using proven existing data.

Online banking only - if you use the app, you can use an existing payee. They do blank out any Reference, though, so you would have the re-enter it. 

Santander could, and should, make lots of improvements to the way payees are handled.

soulsaver

Daliah said:

soulsaver said:

My (other) gripe is, whilst before COP an existing payee could be also be used for the set up of Standing Orders, now you must re-key all the details.
That seems like a bigger risk of a typo than using proven existing data.

Online banking only - if you use the app, you can use an existing payee. They do blank out any Reference, though, so you would have the re-enter it. 

Santander could, and should, make lots of improvements to the way payees are handled.

Seconded.

Stompa

They do appear to provide a 'nickname' field for corporate accounts:

https://www.santandercb.co.uk/support/santander-connect-help-centre/confirmation-payee

• A nickname for the beneficiary. This is to help you identify the beneficiary in online banking and does not form part of the Confirmation of Payee check

so they are clearly well aware of the issue. Goodness knows why it's not implemented for personal account customers too.

Daliah

Stompa said:

They do appear to provide a 'nickname' field for corporate accounts:

https://www.santandercb.co.uk/support/santander-connect-help-centre/confirmation-payee

• A nickname for the beneficiary. This is to help you identify the beneficiary in online banking and does not form part of the Confirmation of Payee check

so they are clearly well aware of the issue. Goodness knows why it's not implemented for personal account customers too.

That's interesting.

Though a nickname would be of next to zero benefit to me, and I reckon to many other Santander customers. I would probably only use it if it would be possible to add a nickname to existing payees (of which I have some three dozen at any point in time). After all, we have coped perfectly well without a nickname ever since Santander UK has been operating in the UK, which is now an entire decade.

There are lots and lots of other things Santander could do to make payee handling more user friendly. Such as a search function, a means of sorting the payee list by various fields, ability to modify the payee in the app, ability to restore cancelled/deleted payees, ability to modify the Reference field, same functionality online and in the app, ability to use of the same payee across multiple current accounts etc etc etc.

soulsaver

If this is developing into a wish list:
The ability to alter to a single payment date on bulk selected SOs?

where_are_we

This change is a pain! We have numerous payees and the old system, using mandate numbers was quick and easy. This isn`t!