Santander scraps its beloved passbook

Close to 250,000 Santander customers will be stripped of their muchloved passbooks, in the latest blow to in-branch banking.

From March next year, account holders will not be able to use the paper documents to keep a physical record of their transactions. This is despite the bank admitting passbooks were the “preferred way of banking” for many.

Instead customers will be given “flexible cash cards”, to use to draw cash from branches and Post Office branches, as well as up to £300 per day from cash machines, the bank said.

Customers can turn off the cash withdrawal function and instead sign for their cash over the counter. Passbook customers will also be given Santander-branded wallets, which they can use to store their own printed out paper statements.

Those who do not want the new cash cards or wallets must bank online. Around 112,000 of the affected customers have not used online banking for at least three months, suggesting they depended on traditional means of managing their spending.

Gareth Shaw of consumer group Which? said vulnerable customers risked being excluded. Passbooks were once as common as debit cards are today, but have become less wellused with the prevalence of online banking and the decline of the high street branch. The books were updated in branch each time a transaction occurred. This would provide a record customers could use to track their income and outgoings.

Santander said it would immediately contact customers who have used a passbook 10 times or more in the calendar year 2020 or 2019. All other customers will be contacted by January 2022.