I bank with Cahoot. It was an internet only subsidiary of Abbey National, however now Santander owns Abbey, it's technically a subsidiary of Santander. Anyway, around about 3 September last year I noticed a change to the way my transactions were being listed online. Instead of displaying something useful like who the money went to and any references used, if any, they've switched to explicitly telling you what type of transaction it was in as many words and letters as possible. They've also taken to capitalising everything which looks terrible.

Here are 5 transfers I performed last night...

Cahoot's Crap Transaction Listing

Can you tell me what they're for? No? Exactly!! How on earth does Cahoot expect it's customers to identify their transactions? I know what they're for as I made the transfers and they're still fresh in my mind (they're individual payments to the same savings accounts, but with difference references - I use this as a way of setting up virtual savings accounts) but had I not checked straight away, I wouldn't have a clue where this money went without calling them up.

I contacted Cahoot a while back when I first noticed this asking if this could be reverted or improved and in a word, NO. They've had a system upgrade and it can't be changed. Obviously this wasn't a well thought out upgrade as it makes the transaction listing almost useless. What's more it's worse when you check your actual statement as it truncates the text even more.

I've done some research and it appears this is all part of Cahoot switching across to Santander's servers. Sadly Santander have quite a reputation for poor customer service (I've not experienced it yet) and I wouldn't be surprised if this transfers into their attitude towards dealing with their customers on brands they've taken over.

I'm now seriously considering the prospect of switching my current account to someone else who offers a better online experience, however I'm a bit reluctant given the problems that could occur due to the move and the fact that apparently Santander are planning on merging all their online brands onto a single European wide system called OpenBank which may make things better. I'm also quite happy with Cahoot, I just don't like their recent "upgrade".

I guess I should probably start looking around and then see what happens with the whole OpenBank idea - the general rumours seem to be Cahoot is pretty much dead in the water so I should probably jump before the ship sinks.