Head Office Address:
Santander UK plc.
Registered Office:
2 Triton Square,
Regent’s Place,
London,
NW1 3AN,
United Kingdom

Santander Review

Santander is a well-known bank that offers many services and products whether you are one of their customers or not.

The company was previously known as Abbey National PLC and had this name for over 22 years until January 2010, when the decision to change their name to Santander was made.

Santander actually purchased Abbey National back in 2004 along with Bradford & Bingley in 2008 and Alliance & Leicester in 2009. All three companies were then rebranded as Santander in 2010.

Since the rebranding in 2010, Santander has continued to grow and expand; offering a whole range of excellent services to both new and existing customers.

Santander is listed as one of the top 3 banks in the UK for high paying interest rates on their saving accounts.

What is the meaning of Santander?

The word ‘Santander’ originates from Spain. It is the capital of the Spanish province of Cantabria.

Santander itself is a beautiful historical city which has a breathtaking coastline and luscious sandy beaches. There is no end of fantastic things to see and do in this beautiful city.

There is a rich array of marine life just off the coast, making this city an ideal place to go diving and explore the rich underwaters.

Cantabria also has a few museums that are well worth the visit, one of the best and most interesting being ‘Prehistory and Archaeology Museum of Cantabria’. There is so much to learn here about human life and archaeology, you will be surprised just how interesting you will find this place!

For an entrance fee of only 5 euros, you will be pleasantly surprised.

How the company works:

Santander is a bank and so operates the same as most other banks in the UK.

They offer a wide range of banking services along with extras – such as savings, mortgages, loans and credit cards.

Repayment method:

Repayment with Santander is by direct debit only. You can choose any day between the 1^st and the 28^th for your loan payment to be taken from your account. This means you can choose a day which is suitable for your circumstances.

Do I need a bank account?

You will need a bank account to be eligible to apply for a loan with Santander. Your bank account does not need to be with Santander and can be with any UK bank. Being a Santander customer means you can apply for loans over £25,000.

To be eligible to apply for a Santander loan you must fit the following criteria:

• You must be 21 or over and live in the UK permanently.
• You must have a regular yearly income of £6,000+.
• You must make your repayments via Direct Debit.
• You cannot have been declared bankrupt, had a CCJ or an IVA within the last 6 years.

Address information

You will be required to provide all address information for over the past 3 years during your application with Santander. It is best to ensure you have all this information to hand before you start your loan application to make your process as efficient and smooth as possible.

ID and Income

Santander requires the details of your current employer including their address, postcode and phone number.

They will also require all the details of your current monthly income and outgoings to ensure that you will be able to repay the loan.

After you have filled out all of the required information, a credit check will be performed.

Penalties

As with all loan companies, if you do not repay the loan then there will be consequences against your account.

Santander can take the payment from any other accounts you may have with them or can make a record with a credit reference agency against your name.

If you miss multiple payments then it can lead to legal proceedings against you or even secure the debt against your house.

If at any stage you feel you are getting into difficulty paying, then please contact them as soon as possible and inform them of your unfortunate situation.

Reviews

Trust Pilot did not show very good reviews for Santander. Their overall rating was bad with just 1.5 stars out of 5. 83% of the trust pilot reviews were bad.

After researching into just what the issues were, they seemed to cover a whole range of issues, not just one.

Some customers we complaining about the actual face to face customer service of inside the banks and the waiting times in the queues.

Quite a few of the customers were complaining about Santander’s online banking and the blocking of payments when transfers were being made, obviously causing a lot of frustration. Many customers stated that it took a long time to resolve this kind of issue.

The largest, most consistent amount of complaints are about the bank’s actual penalty fees and overdraft rates when the customer’s account had become overdrawn.

We couldn’t seem to find any specific reviews or complaints about the Santander loans and customer’s experience with this service.

In the Press

The most recent press article about Santander was published less than 4 hours ago discussing the banks’ position with Brexit – (29/09/2019).

The bank had released information on their position during Brexit. The news article stated the following:

“Santander has written down the value of its UK business by €1.5bn (£1.33bn) citing “a change in outlook” owing to regulation, an increase in competition and Brexit.