Santander - New UI for paying existing payee

pafpcg

Daliah said:

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.

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.

Allowing a change to the data in the Reference field is definitely at the top of my wish-list.  It's frustrating that a need to change the reference data means creating a new payee.

Daliah

Deleted_User said:

I think you and others may not be aware that for many savings (and other) accounts the Reference field is not something optional where you can enter whatever random information you like and change it at the drop of a hat. 

I think you may significantly underestimate the knowledge of people, particularly on this forum, about making payments online or in apps.

AlwaysLearnin

I regularly change the reference field for one of my payees (to quote an invoice reference) when making a payment via the app.  The most recent reference is retained/shown in the payee list.

Daliah

AlwaysLearnin said:

I regularly change the reference field for one of my payees (to quote an invoice reference) when making a payment via the app.  The most recent reference is retained/shown in the payee list.

This looks like a recent enhancement, as it now seem possible in both, online banking and in the app.

Daliah

Deleted_User said:

AlwaysLearnin said:

I regularly change the reference field for one of my payees (to quote an invoice reference) when making a payment via the app.  The most recent reference is retained/shown in the payee list.

For some payees the Reference field may have a mandatory code in it to enable the payment to reach the correct account. Under those circumstances you can't then alter the contents to hold an invoice number or anything else. This is where it will be useful to have an optional field for you to enter that information

The account holder is likely to know better than Santander what Reference to use. Santander has no means of verifying that the data entered is correct or otherwise.

You seem to be somewhat pre-occupied with the idea that people would want to (ab-)use the Reference field for identifying the payee. As you rightly say, this would be a slightly short-sighted approach as it can't be applied universally, and therefore it's not used by many, or any. Whilst an extra nickname field might fulfill the purpose of uniquely identifying a payee, provided existing payees can be updated accordingly, people have been happily naming their payees uniquely for literally decades, and can continue to do so despite CoP. I don't see people de-camping in droves from Santander to the likes of Natwest or Virgin Money for their nickname support, and I have not been encouraged or enticed to change my longstanding payee naming convention (uniquely identifying each payee) for the nickname facility. There are many, many much more worthwhile improvements Santander could, and should, make to their handling of payee information.

Daliah

Deleted_User said:

Daliah said:

You seem to be somewhat pre-occupied with the idea that people would want to (ab-)use the Reference field for identifying the payee.

I suggest you raise that as a complaint to Family Building Society and the many other financial institutions that I have accounts with which will only accept payments if I enter into the the Reference field the code they give me. I cannot enter anything else in the Reference field. otherwise the majority of the payments I wish to make will fail.

 Just to clarify, again:  it is perfectly acceptable to me that some financial institutions require a fixed set of information in the Reference field in order to be able to assign the funds transfer to the correct account. I do not feel the need to complain to anyone about it.

Deleted_User said:

Yes I too have been using the pre CoP £1 initial payment pantomime for decades. Now that CoP has arrived I wish to take advantage of it by putting in and verifying the Payee name using CoP. I do not want to continue carrying the risk of entering fake Payee Names because Santander are too idle to add an optional nickname field for personal customers. 

The payee naming system I have been using for nigh on two decades has been almost entirely unaffected by the arrival of CoP. I can use CoP, or overwrite it, as I see fit. I am assuming zero risk when overwriting CoP, as I am able to process the visual verification of a sort code and account number. I totally accept that others may prefer the optional use of an account nickname but there are, as I have outlined before, many other much more beneficial changes Santander could make. If, however, you or others need the nickname, you have the option to do so at other banks, for example at Natwest/RBS/Ulster or Virgin Money. Some of these even pay you to switch to them, so what's stopping you?

Deleted_User said:

Are you planning to lobby Santander to remove that feature for business customers as you appear to prefer CoP is bypassed and fake Payee names continue to be used?

Why would I do any of this? Where have I said CoP should be bypassed? 

Deleted_User said:

Since I am suggesting the nickname field is optional, customers like yourself would be welcome to continue putting in fake Payee names and to bypass CoP.

As above, where have I ever said CoP should be bypassed? Not that that's an option, anyway.

[Deleted User]

Deleted_User said:

AlwaysLearnin said:

I regularly change the reference field for one of my payees (to quote an invoice reference) when making a payment via the app.  The most recent reference is retained/shown in the payee list.

For some payees the Reference field may have a mandatory code in it to enable the payment to reach the correct account. Under those circumstances you can't then alter the contents to hold an invoice number or anything else. This is where it will be useful to have an optional field for you to enter that information

In these cases, the Building Society has opted to have account numbers that don't conform to industry standards i.e. eight digits along with a six digit sort code. In payment scheme terms, the reference field is optional. It's simply used to pass extra information between the sender and the end recipient about the payment as a whole (metadata); it's not actually designed for account /.roll numbers. 

Vortigern

Deleted_User said:

 The nickname field is not checked against CoP or anything else and customers can if they wish enter "Happy Birthday George" if they so desire. I believe the optional nickname field should be the only field which customers can change to whatever they like

If you enter "Happy birthday George" in the nickname field. George will not see your message; if you enter it in the reference field, he will see it on his statement.

I accept your point about payments to building societies (and credit cards) needing a specific reference but there are many other payments that don't need any reference. 

pafpcg

Deleted_User said:

Daliah said:

Deleted_User said:

Are you planning to lobby Santander to remove that feature for business customers as you appear to prefer CoP is bypassed and fake Payee names continue to be used?

Why would I do any of this? Where have I said CoP should be bypassed? 

......
You [Daliah] have given no reason for your objection to an optional nickname field (which we're told is already available to Sander business account holders). Why are you unwilling to have an optional nickname field (which you are not obliged to use) to assist customers in  distinguishing between different payees?

You seem to be misunderstanding what Daliah and others are saying.  In Daliah's posts, I can see no objection to a nickname field, only that Daliah would prefer a different sequence for the availability of new facilities.  Was it me that started us off on this tangent by expressing my ranking of preferences for any new Santander payment facilities? - I'm surprised it's generated so much heat...

It's all a bit pointless since Santander will introduce only what Santander believe is in Santander's interests, bearing in mind the risk and cost of making any change to Santander's banking systems.  There was, for several years, a fault in Santander's payment system for the reference data (and maybe it's still there for all I know) that Santander chose to pay compensation to customers who fell foul of the bug, rather than to fix the fault.

[Deleted User]

Deleted_User said:

Daliah said:

Deleted_User said:

Are you planning to lobby Santander to remove that feature for business customers as you appear to prefer CoP is bypassed and fake Payee names continue to be used?

Why would I do any of this? Where have I said CoP should be bypassed? 

For decades prior to the introduction of CoP I have frequently been putting different Payee Names on my payments list in order to help indicate which account the payment is going to. It required the use of what I call the "£1 initial payment pantomime" to verify that my payment was going to the correct account. Therefore I welcomed the introduction of CoP to confirm that the payee name is correct thus potentially enabling me to pay the full amount rather than needing the "£1 initial payment pantomime" to verify the payee. Unfortunately, without an optional nickname field, I'm often still having to perform the "£1 initial payment pantomime". You have given no reason for your objection to an optional nickname field (which we're told is already available to Sander business account holders). Why are you unwilling to have an optional nickname field (which you are not obliged to use) to assist customers in  distinguishing between different payees?

I would also welcome if CoP was enhanced to cover more UK bank accounts. For example, where the receiving account currently requires the use of Reference field to identify it, I would like CoP to be enhanced to have another field (might be called account2) to include such accounts. This would mean the Reference field no longer being used for that purpose thus enabling customers to enter whatever they like into the Reference field.

Or those tiny minority of account providers could just switch to industry standard account numbers and use the CoP facility as is?