Santander forces name change on woman with accounts in two names

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/may/16/santander-name-change-woman-maiden-married-names

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Should a woman be forced by her bank to choose between her maiden name and married name? Robyn Marsack has been left with cheques she is unable to pay into her bank after Santander took the extraordinary step of changing the name on one of her current accounts, seemingly to prevent her operating one in her maiden name and another in her married name.

Marsack told Guardian Money that she was incensed the Spanish-owned bank could make such a change without notifying or consulting her. It was only when she went into a branch to pay in a cheque that she found that the account she held in her maiden name of Marsack, which she uses for her salary and other work-related payments, had had its name changed to Airlie, her married name. She already has a Santander account in her married name, which she uses for day-to-day purposes.

Santander has told us this shouldn’t have happened, and that Marsack was the victim of a “genuine branch error” – but it comes a year after Money reported on the case of another woman who spent several frustrating months trying to open a Santander current account in her maiden name, when she had an existing joint account with her husband at the bank. She initially had her application turned down, though she told us the bank eventually reversed the decision after she appealed.

Related: Santander: why can't I open an account?

You don’t need to spend long browsing the forums of websites such as Mumsnet and MoneySavingExpert to find plenty of evidence that many women who use both their maiden and married names encounter problems with banks.

Santander told us there was nothing stopping a customer from holding an account in their maiden as well as their married name – but it would appear this message isn’t reaching branch level.

Marsack, who lives in Glasgow, is the director of the Scottish Poetry Library, an arts organisation and registered charity based in Edinburgh. She has operated the two Santander accounts without any problems for several years. She began this arrangement when she was working freelance, and continued it when she returned to salaried employment 15 years ago. The account in the name of Marsack was originally held with the Woolwich, but she moved it to Santander.

She first learned there might be a problem several weeks ago, when she went into her local branch to transfer some money into the Marsack account. She says she was told that it was no longer possible to run two different accounts with the same national insurance number, and that they would be amalgamated at some stage. “I was annoyed. Anyone looking at my account activity over the past 10-15 years could see there were no unusual transactions or patterns – but I at least assumed I would be told when it would take place.”

However, she says she heard nothing. Then, late last month, she went to pay a cheque into the Marsack account, only to be told this was not possible as the two accounts had been amalgamated under the name of Airlie.

“The teller said: ‘There’s a difficulty with this cheque. There’s not an account with that name – it’s now Airlie’,” she recalls. “I produced my bank card with the name Marsack on it and asked to speak to the manager.”

I can’t believe this could be done in such a high-handed fashion, and that I’m the only working woman to suffer this way

She says the branch manager repeated the line about how it was not possible to have two accounts with the same NI number, and indicated the move was part of a crackdown on fraud and money laundering.

“I can’t believe this could be done in such a high-handed and arbitrary fashion, and I also can’t believe I’m the only working woman to suffer in this way,” Marsack told Money. “I could sort of understand if it was bank policy that two accounts relating to the same NI number can’t be held in different names. It’s clear I haven’t done anything fraudulent, but I suppose they can’t check through every account, and it’s easier for them to make a blanket rule.

“But to change my account name without informing me – and to choose which name! It’s a massive inconvenience and I’ll now be switching my Marsack account out of there.”

She adds: “Twice this week I’ve received cheques made out to my maiden name which I’m not able to deposit.”

What made the bank’s decision seem particularly perverse was that, as well as being her work name, Marsack is what appears on official documents such as her passport. “So they have decided to put the account in the name that’s not my passport name.”

Sarah Pennells at SavvyWoman.co.uk says many women choose to keep their maiden name for work and use their married name the rest of the time. “I wouldn’t have thought this would cause so many problems with banking.”

She adds that there seems to be very little information provided by the banks on what you should do if you want to open two accounts in different names, and no uniform approach taken by all the banks. “Some don’t seem to like a customer having two accounts with different names, while others don’t seem to have a problem with it. If you are with a bank that won’t let you open two accounts, you should switch to one that will – but that’s not much comfort if you’ve signed up with a specific bank because it has the best deal for you, only to find it won’t let you open a second account.”

After Marsack complained to Santander, a woman from the complaints department contacted her this week. “I clarified that I felt the policy was unacceptable. She offered me £20 for my time and trouble, which I accepted. She said that my complaint would be ‘fed back’.”

Santander told Money: “A genuine error occurred in-branch and, due to a misunderstanding, the branch requested that Mrs Airlie’s accounts be merged. A customer can have an account in their maiden as well as their married name, and an account can also have a marker with details of another name used by the customer.”

The bank indicated it was keen to put Marsack back into the position she was in before the changes were made.

Women have highlighted a variety of different problems on online forums discussing this issue. Some have reported that once they got married, they weren’t allowed to retain an account in their maiden name into which their salary was paid, at the same time as running a joint account in their married name at the same institution.

In May 2014, Money’s Consumer Champions column featured the case of a long-standing Santander customer living in Suffolk who was struggling to open one of its 123 current accounts in her maiden name, when she had an existing joint account with her husband at the bank. Her application was initially turned down, which she believed was because the surname on the electoral roll was her married one, though Santander told us at the time that it was because of an error unrelated to the account being in her maiden name.

At the time we wrote: “We find it disappointing just how many complaints we get from women who, rightly, want accounts in both their maiden and married names.”

As we have reported on previous occasions, many banks have embarked on a process of “de-risking” their businesses – ie, dumping customers who could potentially be deemed risky and generally tightening up their rules – because they are petrified about falling foul of the regulations on money laundering and financing crime, and being hit with huge fines as a result.

In March, we told how an Iran-born economics professor had his NatWest accounts shut down with no explanation, while in December we revealed that Barclays had informed a businessman that it was closing his current account, and the savings accounts of his two children, with no explanation.