Santander Bank: Amazing bank for the people who like free money?

[Herbert Derp]

https://www.santanderbank.com

Does anyone here use Santander bank? I've been thinking of getting an account with them, $20/month is better than pretty much any other bank I've seen so far.

Anyone know if I can use the BillPay feature without actually having any bills? Can I have it pay another one of my bank accounts?

[Two9A]

Over in the UK, Santander are known as the new owners of the Abbey and Bradford/Bingley building societies. They're famous for their atrocious customer service, and being impossible to leave simply because they don't respond to your requests to leave.

In the US, YMMV.

[usmarine1975]

I have a loan with Santander that will be paid off very soon.  Worst bank that I have ever dealt with.  Any Ach deposits take at minimum 5 days to clear.  Withdrawals are credited before deposits.  So even if you wait the 5 days to withdraw, your money will be pulled before it's deposited.  I have had split deposit's into 2 accounts with Santander being one the money was always 5 days behind the other bank in being available at Santander.  Trying to get someone to speak with that knows or can actually tell you what is going on very difficult.  I still have 2 checking accounts with them with a zero balance.  Waiting for them to close out the accounts.  With the loan I have we have finally found someone we can talk to about the loan to get it serviced.  None of our local branches can access the information on the loan.  It's a business loan.  And I can't access the loan information online at all.  They use an antiquated reporting system that does not allow it. 

[daverobev]

Over in the UK, Santander are known as the new owners of the Abbey and Bradford/Bingley building societies. They're famous for their atrocious customer service, and being impossible to leave simply because they don't respond to your requests to leave.

In the US, YMMV.

Alas, poor building societies. I had a mortgage with Abbey National -> Santander... actually I didn't have any problems with them.

I bank with Nationwide now :)

[Jags4186]

I have Santander simply for the $20.  I have it pretty much on autopilot.  Here's my plan:

I have $375 of my paycheck direct deposited every week to Santander.

I have two $10 automated bill pays to my credit card from Santander.

My investment account pulls $250/wk from Santander.

The remaining $125 piles up to auto pay a $500 loan payment I am making.

Have an automatic transfer of $20 from the Santander savings to my Santander checking.

It's pretty simple...in months where I get paid 5 times instead of 4 I just pull an extra $125 from the account to my investment account.

What I would say is just make sure--with the exception of the two required billpays--everything is an ACH pull from the account not a ACH push.  Santander has some hefty fees for ATM withdrawals and transfers to external accounts.

At first it was a pain to get set up the right way but now that I have it this way I don't really have to do much other than make sure I pull the extra $125 four times a year.

[GoldenStache]

When I was insurance and found out the totaled vehicle was financed with Santander I would instantly ask if they paid for GAP insurance.  Every vehicle was always negative equity. 

[Herbert Derp]

I finally pulled the trigger and submitted an application for the Santander extra20 accounts. My preliminary thoughts are that their web interface is above average, and they even gave me a free order of checks which was nice. I'll keep you guys posted on what happens.

[firelight]

We have it on autopilot with Santander too... So far no issues. And the $20 per month is sweet!

[KaizenSoze]

I knew that bank sounded familiar.

Santander was mentioned in an article about how meekly US banks were regulated.
http://www.propublica.org/article/carmen-segarras-secret-recordings-from-inside-new-york-fed

At the time, European banks were shaky, particularly the Spanish ones. To shore up confidence, the European Banking Authority was demanding that banks hold more capital to offset potential future losses. Meeting these capital requirements was at the heart of the Goldman-Santander transaction.

Under the deal, Santander transferred some of the shares it held in its Brazilian subsidiary to Goldman. This effectively reduced the amount of capital Santander needed. In exchange for a fee from Santander, Goldman would hold on to the shares for a few years and then return them. The deal would help Santander announce that it had reached its proper capital ratio six months ahead of the deadline.

[Herbert Derp]

Just got my first $20! The free checks are also great. So far everything has been excellent.