Customers
We have around 25 million customers in the UK, predominantly retail customers served through our network of 1,400 branches and our regional call centres, and we have a growing range of services for corporate and business customers. Our vision is to become the best commercial bank in the UK by delivering great service and market-leading products.
The main corporate responsibility issues that we are addressing relate to Financial Inclusion and Capability, Managing Complaints and supporting Businesses. An outline of our main actions is detailed below, and further information is available via the links on the left or in our CSR Report.
Financial inclusion
Financial inclusion refers to the objective of ensuring that everyone, and in particular people living on low incomes, has access to the financial services and products that they need. Santander supports all three of the Government's 'ABC' priority areas: Advice - access to free money advice, Banking - access to banking services, Credit - access to affordable credit. Santander also supports the Government's objective of improving and expanding financial capability and the FSA's National Strategy for Financial Capability. For more detail on our support in these areas, please see the links on the left hand side.
Customer service
Service Quality is a key strategic priority. It is only by focusing on the customer at all times and delivering excellent service that we will differentiate ourselves from the competition and reach our goal of being the best commercial bank in the UK.
Our service quality improvement programme is in place across all customer-facing areas of the bank and includes monitoring of a wide range of service measures. We obtain customer feedback, with around 250,000 customers surveyed to identify how satisfied they are with their branch or call centre.
Managing complaints
Santander's aim for managing complaints is to actively seek and effectively manage feedback. The Complaints department is engaged in identifying trends, examining root causes and complaints prevention.
Treating customers fairly
'Treating Customers Fairly' is an initiative from the finance sector's regulator, the Financial Services Authority. TCF aims to improve 'outcomes' for consumers of financial products.
Our governance structure has been reviewed to ensure the principle of treating customers fairly is integral to our key decision-making forums and we have developed high-level management information to reflect the key TCF risks. Staff have regular refresher training and a TCF module has been built into our induction training for all new staff.
Helping small businesses
With our simple low cost, fixed fee interest paying business current accounts, customers can be sure of what they pay each month, offering a real alternative to some traditional high street banks. Plus our range of deposit accounts offer some of the best rates of interest on the high street. By providing local, reliable support through our team of expert Local Business Managers we can meet our customers' needs and help support the growth of their business.
Social housing lending
Social housing is housing owned and managed by either UK local authorities or not-for-profit organisations, known as Registered Social Landlords (RSLs). Homes are typically available for rent at an affordable price, and efforts are made by the landlords to ensure high standards of building and maintenance and to encourage a sense of community among the tenants. Santander provides funding to social housing organisations, amounting to some £7.6 billion.