Santander stopping alerts - why would they do that?

GeoffTF

A quick Google search suggests that Santander is probably paying much less than 10p a text. Emails seem to cost about $0.0001 per email:

https://mailmeteor.com/glossary/email-price

I would be happy to have just email alerts.

Currently, Santander's alerts are often delayed and occasionally do not arrive at all. Fixing that could be expensive. Perhaps customers are saying that it is not their fault that they did not notify the bank earlier, it is the bank's fault for not sending the alert sooner, or not sending it at all.

uk1

Theleak250 said:

The text costs a bank money, my company has a similar thing and it costs 10p a text. Technology comes and goes, how did people survive before these texts? I think people need to adapt away from them as they adapted into them. I stand by that this is an old technology and perhaps a compromise would be to charge customers who still wish to have them. 

They have cancelled email alerts.  

uk1

peter021072 said:

Banks make profits from people going overdrawn, bills bouncing and other 'mismanagement' of accounts, so it may not be in their interests. One facility from Santander I currently find particularly useful is a warning if a bill is expected on the day which will send me OD. Of course if they were really working in my interest why not just automatically top up the current account from a linked interest earning account if that happens?  That would take out much of the need for managing the account at a stoke.

Many of the texts they send me are superfluous though. If the warnings are withdrawn, I would like to see web accounts without 2 factor authorisation just for viewing, albeit with this  type of security for changes & withdrawals. 

Will they keep 'alerts to help you avoid charges' near the bottom of this link? 

I always frown at the move to 'apps' if that means operating accounts via a mobile. Financial transactions should ideally be carried out in a comfortable environment on a large screen, mouse and keyboard to avoid mistakes, not crouching over a tiny display, faffing about sliding a finger around and trying to type out characters.

Banks lose money when customers successfully claim an unauthorised debit or a scam.  Alerts help lower those claims.  

The suggestion that they removed email alerts so as to increase unintended  overdrafts and penalties is ridiculous. 

GeoffTF

peter021072 said:

If the warnings are withdrawn, I would like to see web accounts without 2 factor authorisation just for viewing, albeit with this  type of security for changes & withdrawals.

Santander provides that. If you are having to use 2FA to log in, I suggest that you look at your browser settings. I had that problem until I enabled pop-ups for the Santander website.

UncleK

uk1 said:

They have cancelled email alerts.  

What they say is that they will stop sending some “account alerts”. These can be either text or email.

Section62

Theleak250 said:

The text costs a bank money, my company has a similar thing and it costs 10p a text....

I doubt Santander are paying anything like 10p per text.  But according to another poster nobody has text alerts anymore, so even at 10p each the total cost can't be that much compared to (say) providing customers with plastic debit cards.

And if they are costing 10p, then why do they insist on sending a 2FA text more or less every time I make a small payment to a saved payee (an account in my name) which was first set up more than 6 years ago and paid countless times since?

If Santander face bankruptcy sending text alert messages to customers then I'm sure we could get our collective heads together and make some suggestions how they could be a bit more MSE.

uk1

UncleK said:

uk1 said:

They have cancelled email alerts.  

What they say is that they will stop sending some “account alerts”. These can be either text or email.

And email alerts are free. 

AstonSmith

It's a shame they can't replace these with push notifications for those with the app. They'd be approximately equivalent to SMS for those with smartphones.

tattyead

I’m so disappointed that santander are removing these alerts. I believe that it’s in their interests aswell as ours to keep them going. 

I only spotted some fraudulent use of my card because I got 2 alerts through to say that 2 large payments had been made. I had no knowledge of them, so I quickly got onto the fraud dept and a disaster was averted. There’s no way I would have been able to respond as quickly had I not had the alerts. The thieves could well have emptied my account!

UncleK

It is indeed odd why they are doing this. They claim "We’re doing this because you can get a more detailed view of your account activity with Mobile or Online Banking." But surely they must know the meaning of the word "alert"?
Either it's somehow costing them too much, which is difficult to believe, especially emails, or something a bit nasty, like wanting us to not find out things as quickly as we do at the moment. Maybe they need to upgrade and they can't be ar$ed to do this bit?