Santander stopping alerts - why would they do that?

UncleK

I have a Santander Edge Up Current Account, with all sorts of benefits that Santander shout from the rooftops about. I must admit, in general it is fairly good, IMHO.

And one of the things I genuinely find useful is the alerts - not just dull ones that other banks send for every transaction, but alterable ones, like:

• When your account balance falls below a limit you’ve set
• When your account balance goes above a limit you’ve set
• When you pay more into your account than a limit you’ve set
• When you take more money out of your account than a limit you’ve set

Every single one of those is getting canned from 12th May, plus Weekly account balances and transactions, which I don't use.

But they say that "after this, you can continue to manage your accounts using our other services. There are 3 ways you can do this:

By using Mobile or Online Banking

By calling us on 0330 9 123 123. Lines are open every day from 8am-6pm

In your local branch. To find your local branch and their opening times use our branch locator tool on the Santander website."

Why on earth would they be implementing such a backward step?

Does anyone know of other accounts that have these features - I may head there.

Cheers

Section62

UncleK said:

Why on earth would they be implementing such a backward step?

Sounds like one of those things banks have been doing to herd customers towards their banking app rather than using other methods of banking.

daveyjp

Banks are businesses, providing services costs money.

Santander will know how much those functions cost to implement and manage and how many customers actually use them.  If its not serving a purpose customers want or need the function will be canned.

Lightning360

Probably not worth the cost of keeping with not that many customers actually using them.

wiseonesomeofthetime

I use the alert to let me know when my Edge Saver interest has been added, so that I can withdraw it.

Going to have to use other means soon then by looks of it.

GeoffTF

Does anyone have a link? It will be a big step backwards for me.

UncleK

I got it by email, so no link to offer, I'm afraid

TheBanker

Their webiste implies they might be planning to offer push notifications at some point

https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/understanding-our-services/account-alerts

uk1

I had to read this several times as I was convinced I’d misunderstood such a bewildering improvement.

We use alerts simply to be notified of any transactions over a set limit.   It’s easy and quick to delete and seems like an added safety check.

There must be some reason why  they have decided to do this but I can’t think of one.

Section62

daveyjp said:

Banks are businesses, providing services costs money.

Santander will know how much those functions cost to implement and manage and how many customers actually use them.  If its not serving a purpose customers want or need the function will be canned.

Except it isn't being canned, the function will still be there (costing money) for some types of alert, they are just removing some of the alert options.

TheBanker

Section62 said:

daveyjp said:

Banks are businesses, providing services costs money.

Santander will know how much those functions cost to implement and manage and how many customers actually use them.  If its not serving a purpose customers want or need the function will be canned.

Except it isn't being canned, the function will still be there (costing money) for some types of alert, they are just removing some of the alert options.

Some of the alerts are required by FCA rules. They are staying.