I really wish we could use round-ups on credit cards… All of our daily spend is on our Natwest credit card, which we pay off at the end of each month. Switching to the debit card would effectively “cost” us a whole month’s spend though, which would be unpleasant…
Wouldn’t that technically make it a cash advance?
It would even out after a month though right?
Hmmm I hadn’t thought of that. You’re right, and that makes sense.
Yes, but that month would suck!
There’s probably other reasons for credit cards not having roundups such as potentially being charged interest on a portion of a balance you haven’t borrowed. Plus you’d just be paying it back at the end of the month to settle the full statement balance anyway. It makes more sense for credit cards to just have cashback applied as a credit rather than increasing your borrowing artificially.
Cater Allen is part of Santander.
We don’t even know what is happening with Santander, if anything. The Santander group has been more publicly positive than they would need to be if they were thinking of getting rid of it.
If N26 Taught us one thing it’s that you can’t trust it!
Hope, yes, but be prepared for the potential eventuality. I’m too scorned.
At least with Santander, whatever happens, they’re so big that it won’t just be a case of closing down the business and everyone’s accounts. Someone else will take them over and keep continuity of service.
I think it’s quite obvious at this stage that nothing is happening with Santander. The FT have a lot to answer for. They must have known that reviewing markets is a normal event within large firms and that it wasn’t a story worth reporting on.
I can imagine the level of damage inflicted on Santander, due to the press choosing to make something out of nothing, will be quite considerable.
The problem is, Santander will not shake the rumours now. I was speaking to someone just a few days ago and the moment Santander was mentioned, their response was “what’s the point, they are closing”. This misinformation will persist for years.
As for those who suspected Santander may have put the story out themselves. I honestly can’t see it. It would have been nothing less than an act of self-harm.
It really was a non-story in my opinion.
This post may not age well mind. If they announce they are leaving the market tomorrow, please feel free to quote this post and call me out as a naive fool.
Not if it influences policy on the car loans. That caused a whopping dent in their results for the UK yesterday.
I still can’t see it. I suspect they will lose more from the damage caused by the media coverage. Most people are generally quite simple. Once they hear something, they won’t change their view, regardless of how many times you provide them with updated information.
If that was really their intent and they put the story out, I can see it backfiring on them.
The car compensation is a one-off cost, it isn’t going to impact their long-term viability. The press have created a narrative, they have seen there is a review taking place and have then pulled together every possible concern a bank may have about the UK market right now, and have developed a narrative that supports a conclusion that Santander are leaving.
Car loan comp, ring-fencing etc. They have started with a conclusion and have then built a case around it. Santander should take legal action, in my opinion.
As I said, I could be wrong. This is just how the situation comes across to me.
I’m not so sure! I’m going purely off the chat between Martin Lewis and the regulator boss on his show a few months back, but it seemed to me like there’s a real potential long term viability issue with the car finance market depending on how this winds up getting resolved, with a risk of it becoming an unviable product to offer in the future, which is probably a big revenue generator for a bank like Santander.
So I can totally buy Santander leaking this by way of the FT as a strategic play and it backfired on them. Desperate times and all that.
On the other hand there could just be something more to all this. You say the FT have a lot to answer and perhaps they do, but based on that I find myself asking why they would publish it. Like you say, they must have known it’s a normal thing. They’re smarter than that, and they have a reputation that would dissuade that kind of reckless journalism. It’s the only reason I have a hard time believing Santander’s PR spin that it was much ado about nothing when it all went belly up. We’ll never know and Santander will never admit to either and they have plausible deniability anyway.
I do think if we apply Occam’s razor though, poorly thought through PR stunt gone wrong is probably it.
I was under the impression the commissions paid to dealers is a historical issue and that it’s no longer happening. This compensation is to atone for historical events only?
I don’t see how Santander’s car finance business would be altered going forward. They would have stopped benefiting from the dodgy commissions system years ago?
As you say, it may have been just a very silly PR exercise that wasn’t thought through.
I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on the FT being above getting it wrong though. All publications have an issue with journalistic integrity and inaccurate reporting, there are no exceptions to this.
It’s just a case of some publications having fewer problems than others.
I do feel the FT are one of the better ones though.
There was a new court ruling that could upend how it works in the future, because it went it much further than the regulatory ruling IIRC.
I’ll track down the episode and time stamp, or find a clip and update this post when I do.
edit: 10th December episode: The Martin Lewis Money Show Live - Series 13 - Episode 21 - ITVX
It was about the court ruling on commission disclosures which applies to almost all car finance agreements, the FCA ruling is only on DCAs.
About the 24 minute mark. They talk about a risk of less availability on car finance and potentially higher prices. Comes up again at around 37 minutes, too.
But the whole segment is in part 2. Martin was very apprehensive throughout it on whether people should put a complaint in for the commission disclosures court ruling even though they can because of the future impact the supreme courts decision might have. So lenders will be pretty well incentivised to influence the outcome. And it could have implications far beyond car finance, too.