Santander Remove Current Account Charges

Santander news update: Banking group Santander have removed the monthly fee from their current accounts at the cost of the benefits their customers enjoy.

“About 300,000 Santander customers who pay a monthly fee for their current account are to be moved to free accounts and stripped of the benefits they currently enjoy, it emerged on Wednesday.

In March the City regulator tightened the rules on the selling of so-called packaged accounts – which typically charge a monthly fee for benefits that can include travel insurance and card protection – amid concern that some banks and building societies had been mis-selling them.

Santander indicated the decision was not linked to any regulatory moves, saying: "We want to improve service for customers, and to do that we know we have to simplify our product range."

Santander stopped selling new packaged accounts in March 2012, but is now going further by ditching them for existing customers. Five current accounts with fees from £10-£20 a month are affected: Reward, Premium, Travel Reward, Family Reward and Premier 50.

On 19 October everyone who has one of these accounts will be moved on to Santander's Everyday current account. They will no longer pay a fee but will forfeit their perks – including, in some cases, preferential interest rates and fees.”

The move to take the charges off their current accounts is welcomed by many customers because there is often a feeling amongst customers that they should not have to pay a monthly fee for keeping their money somewhere but it does often come with benefits. However, to counter the removal of fees Santander have had to also remove the benefits that customers experienced. This is less relished by the customer as obviously if they’re going to pay for a service, they expect to receive something for that payment.

Santander bought banking group Abbey National in 2009 with the re-brand taking place in January 2010. Santander are now a major presence on the UK high street having also purchased Alliance and Leicester and now all of those branches are Santander branches. The company have not experienced the same problem as Lloyds TSB though and are still considered to own a small enough portion of the market to not be considered unfair. The European Commission have ruled that there must be a certain number of banks and options available to customers and therefore each bank can only have so many branches and therefore so much domination in the market.

For more information on Santander, Click Here and speak with a member of their customer services team. This article was originally sourced from The Guardian.