Santander UK Reviews 

Poor communication, freezing account causing massive business disruption. Received a KYC email on 26/1/2026 asking for me to provide information by 28/8/2025! (I don't have a time machine!) I Ignore it, assuming it was a phishing attempt. Low and behold my business account was frozen a week later at my busiest time. Called customer service and they tell me it can take 24 hours to be up and running again. Not good enough, so will be moving away.

Horrible experiences repeated bullying

They reneged on a lifelong free business banking deal without even giving me notice. Out of the blue I start getting charged £10+vat per month - no explanation. I had to search online to find out!

And what for anyway? The basic service is solid enough but you can't search transactions by customer name - only transaction amount. So if you want to see all payments from a particular customer...tough - you cant!

Further, you can't search transactions beyond the past 6 months. Even when you download a spreadsheet, it wont show more than a certain number of transactions so when trying to get a spreadsheet for the past year, I have to download 2 separate ones and combine them. Not that they tell you this of course. I specify a spreadsheet for the past year and it sends you one - just 5 months of transactions are missing.

And another thing. They changed the layout of payments on the web interface about 6 months ago. However, the old interface is still there in the menu - just doesn't work. Why not create a confusing interface guys???

No I do not recommend this bank.

Worst bank. Avoid. They started charging money from our account without emailing or texting us and without our agreement to changing terms from a free business acount that we kept in credit, they then refused to close the account unless we paid them more money even though the balance was zero.

REPORTING TO FCA.

Been with Santander for a long time; it used to be a good bank, but it has become incredibly unhelpful. They told me I had to update my details by a certain date, and because I did not do it straight away, they blocked my account. As a result, none of my direct debits went out, my mortgage was not paid, and I then had to use their portal – which was extremely complicated – just to get the account reopened and restart every single direct debit. This could easily have damaged my credit rating through no real fault of my own.Three months later, they asked for exactly the same information again and threatened to shut my account if I did not provide it, even though they already had the documents. One part of Santander seems to have my details, but the business banking side apparently does not, so I have to upload everything all over again. I have never known another bank behave like this, and they should not be blocking accounts when nothing has changed. I will be leaving them – there are plenty of other banks out there that actually value their customers.

Awful, abusive of power, couldn't care less about customer service. 9 years business banking with them. They stopped paying standing orders without telling me. Said I hadn't sent them 'required' information, which they had not asked for. So they said the account was on hold, no transactions possible. But they still managed to charge and take £10 for admin of the account. A new charge they have invented, which I have not agreed to, they just imposed. When I asked them to do something about this to show they understand the failure and abuse of power they refused. No refund, no apology, just more pressure on me to spend time for them. Said they had followed process. (ie their internal process is to abuse customers)

Santander are a bank devoid of integrity or ethics. Trust is at the center of the banking relationship but Santander is not trustworthy. For example, SMEs banked using account that were unequivocally free for life. Further, this was defined as being forever providing that there was no change to the law. Despite massive cost savings - for example who writes cheques these day, and who uses telephone banking when online access is provided - Santander have decided to break their commitments and charge £120 per year. This is an egregious act implemented which sacrifices decency in the pursuit of greed.

I am currently looking for a new business bank account. I don't use Santander but was considering it. After reading these reviews I will look elsewhere. Hopefully someone in management bothers to read the reviews and sees that negative reviews from existing customers definitely influences potential new customers. 1.3 stars is enough to put me off. Looks like Santander need to do better!

Simply the worst business banking experience ever!

I have a current account with Santander and have been trying for days (unsuccessfully) to log in to my account in order to transfer money.

I am a UK resident but currently in the Philippines, and there seems to be no choices available to receive an OTP other than via my UK phone number, which I cannot access here. I don't understand why there is no alternative way to receive this, such as WhatsApp (which has my same UK number) or email. Other banks and institutions do provide a choice, but not Santander, which keeps telling me to log in to my account - which I can't for the reasons outlined above.

I've had several 'chats' with a robot called Sandi which just goes round in circles and gets me nowhere. Why doesn't Santander consider customers who are abroad and who cannot always log in in the usual way or call their offices?

Their system is very outdated and frustrating for customers, with no alternative way of receiving OTP's, allowing customers temporarily outside the UK to actually log in. Our money is with this bank (for now) but we cannot access it.
They need to recognise that there is a world outside the UK, and to step up.

Terrible service, not even deserving of one star.

Had a free forever business account for over 12 years now without a letter of notice they are charging me £9.99 a month fees.
WHAT A CON AND SCAMM
Charging me me to have my money in their bank

Santander promised "free forever" in large print on all their marketing materials for their business current account when they took over Abbey National. They have now reneged on this promise and are charging £9.99 a month for their business current account (they've given it a new name but it is the same thing).

The Financial Ombudsman seems to be telling customers that this is fine because the small print said that they would only change this promise if the regulatory environment changed - and the regulatory environment is always changing so this term apparently made the promise meaningless from the beginning.

Why would any of us ever trust anything a financial company says on their marketing materials in the future?

ABYSMAL

For all of the years Ive been wih them, they've been abysmal. They're incompetent and complacently so.
Every single interaction I had with them was a problem. Now you can't even send them a message - you have to phone up and jump through duplicate security hoops in they multiply-flawed automated and manual systems.

Following their introduction of a monthly fee I told them to close the account. That was many months ago I've also called them twice, but still - the account is still open. Since it's empty they can't take any fees, but - shutt he damned account like I told you to do!

If I could, I would take the (very wealthy) architects of this fiasco and put them all in prison.

Disgraceful.

Untrustworthy, poor customer service.avoid

Terrible bank. Been on phone to them all morning - twice I have waited 20 minutes to speak to someone and as soon as someone comes on the line the call is disconnected. They keep trying to get you to do things online but some things cannot be done online e.g. when acting as a power of attorney.

The had an excellent customer service, but various parts of the service have become a law unto their own, very difficult to deal with. You'd think a complaints department would seek to improve or at least maintain their service, not a bit of it. They'd rather tell you black was white than address any failings. Avoid, there are much better banks nowadays

As a Chief Executive of a charity I have banked with Santander for seven years.

I can honestly say my experience of dealing with Santander has had a negative effect on my mental health.

From the abysmal customer service to blocking our account without warning and leaving me embarrassed in shops it has been an utter horror show.

A relentless flood of documents required which were all returned but disappeared and I am currently on the fourth attempt. I will hopefully get our account unblocked and then close the account.

I would urge anyone to use extreme caution when choosing a business bank and to avoid Santander at all costs.

I can't accurately verbalise just how bad our experience has been. Recently we received £200 after a complaint from us was upheld and at the end of it they literally made exactly the same mistake again.

Avoid at all costs. Caused massive distress to a community charity and all in all nobody seemed to care. Absolutely pathetic and genuinely horrid to deal with.

Everything had been fine for 7 years until they asked for a questionnaire to be completed. I completed the questionnaire and uploaded it, heard nothing for a few weeks until I get a text saying my account is restricted. When I call the number, they say that I hadn't answered a couple of questions thoroughly enough and that they'd tried to call me (13 days ago) and couldn't get through, so the obvious thing to do is to restrict my account. They gave me an extension, so I filled in the questions they asked me to more thoroughly and then assumed everything was OK. Then 2 days ago, my account is restricted again (no text or anything this time though) and they point out some different questions that weren't filled out thoroughly. Now I am unable to use my account until someone checks it and no doubt finds a different question again that they want more information on. What an embarrassment.

They contacted me requesting information of people named on Companies House (nothing to do with the bank account). This information was sent by post, downloaded 3 times. They still needed some forms filled in that required sigs. I was abroad at the time of the request and informed them this would be done by 15/10 (which it was) but on 12/10 they blocked my account. I am disgusted, I have been a customer for over 20 years but will be moving elsewhere. Customer service rubbish and the complaints procedure a joke. Go to Tide Monza not these clowns.