Over the top, intrusive KYC from Santander?

[pje16]

They had locked the account owing to inactivity, WHAT , a sum of interest being received every month doesn't count

You would get the interest anyway. I'd suspect a way of confusing their inactivity rules would be to login, make a transfer to another of your accounts, then a few days later transfer it back again. If nothing else, it proves that the login and transfer facilities still work and that you know what the passwords are.

I've had both an ICICI and a Saga (Birmingham Midshires) a/c frozen due to inactivity. The ICICI one was just there to keep an account open with them as that makes opening a new account easier in case they ever get to the top of the interest rate league tables again. It only has 4p in it so I've just left it frozen ("dormant" as they put it).

The Saga one was annoying as I only discovered it was frozen when I went to withdraw the little that was in it 'cos I wanted to close it, and I had to go through their snail mail unfreezing procedure in order to be able to do so! They told me they freeze accounts after 3 years of inactivity.

I see TSB do the same: https://www.tsb.co.uk/inactiveaccounts/

As I have quite a few just-£1-to-keep-an-account-with-them-open accounts I've since added a "Last Action Date" column to my spreadsheet where the cells go red after a couple of years, and then I'll transfer a quid in and out to reset their inactivity timer....

If they are going to lock/freeze an account they should tell you
End of

[Lainecc]

I have had a Santander account for years. Starting as Abbey National. I uploaded all the stuff they required proof of address etc. They said that was fine but it all had to be verified by a solicitor or accountant !
Seriously!! I told them I wasn’t prepared to to engage the services of a solicitor or accountant to verify my ID, and that it was unnecessary as I had had the account for around 30 years!
If they were able to maintain a local branch I would be able to pop in and chat to the manager. Bullying phone call later they informed me that this information and method of verification would be required by all banks. I have 2 other business accounts and nothing like this has been requested.
They promptly froze my account !

I took out a BBL during COVID now they are hassling me to pay it back using another account, despite the fact that there are funds in the frozen account.

Any suggestions on how I should best deal with this ?

[pje16]

what a pain
try this
https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/

[Femi]

As I have quite a few just-£1-to-keep-an-account-with-them-open accounts I've since added a "Last Action Date" column to my spreadsheet where the cells go red after a couple of years, and then I'll transfer a quid in and out to reset their inactivity timer...

I also have some of these hold open accounts - I have standing orders setup to transfer a £1 into each of them and back every 3 months to reset the activity timer. Then I don't have to worry about missing one

[pje16]

I can't be bothered with doing that
btw you misquoted me

[Femi]

btw you misquoted me

So I did - apologies!

[Lainecc]

Anyone had one of these, and/or can give me some thoughts about whether this is appropriate and necessary to follow Know Your Customer rules, or is it some fishing expedition in disguise? To be clear this is totally unsolicited, I have not recently contacted them asking for new savings or investment products or advice.


I've held an Abbey National then Santander current account for over 30 years and currently use it as my main account. As such a lot of money goes through it in terms of regular income and most of our spending, plus regular larger transfers of money from savings in other accounts as they come to the end of their fixed terms or I change accounts for better rates.

This week I got a letter titled "Missing information" saying "We need some important information from you" and some spiel about how they need more information to be able to serve me better and to enable me to access their full range of products and services. They also reference their need to "meet our UK legal and Regulatory obligations".

All fine so far - until I then look at the questions and the proofs and "supporting documentation" they require.

They start with my employment history, including job titles, date ranges, salary, bonus - and ask for payslips or letters from my employer confirming i work for them and how much they paid me
Then sources of income for the last 12 months other than employment with proofs and supporting bank statements and trading account statements
Then Pension income plus proofs from pension supplier
Then sales of shares and investments including proof of source of all funds - with proofs for EVERY sale and dividend (I actively trade and have a LOT of these things and also hold a lot of funds paying small to large dividends, across a number of accounts)
Then income from savings, including evidence of where i got my funds and statements from every provider
Then, finally, they want proof of where my original funds came from for all of these investments! From when i first opened any account (I have been doing this stuff for 40 years!)

They then promise, over 2 full pages of text, to take care of all this information!

I plan to phone them tomorrow or next day to basically say there is no way I am giving them all this information even if i could now find it all and i had it all.

My question to the forum is - is anyone else getting anything like this from Santander or any other provider? And is this a real fact find pushed by the Government for KYC or is this just a way for Santander to get a crap ton of my financial information to then try to sell me stuff?

I'd be interested in peoples' views.