SANTANDER UK
ourselves as challenging the big four of Lloyds , Barclays , HSBC , and NatWest . “ Basically , our vision and mission is to be a digital bank with a human touch . Our purpose is to help businesses and our customers prosper – that ' s what we exist for .”
Catering to the needs of customers Part of this purpose is to ensure that all customer requirements are met . The bank ’ s recognition that , despite the widespread digitisation of the banking industry as a whole , people prefer to interact with people rather than bots is allowing Santander to set itself apart . Of course , it ’ s a radical move – but one that Narang takes pride in .
“ During the pandemic , the banking sector saw a huge amount of change . What was going to take somewhere between 7 to
10 years – in terms of digital adoption by customers – has happened in the course of the last 18 to 24 months .
“ It ' s a huge shift in how customers want to bank , right ? Everybody wants to bank on their phone rather than walking into a branch . And that ’ s multiple times a day for various different requirements and needs that each customer has .
“ But the reality is also that there ’ s a segment , or particular section of our society , that does like to walk into a branch for some specific piece of advice , or for certain types of transactions where they feel more comfortable dealing with a humanbeing , rather than remotely on a piece of equipment .”
The plan is for Santander UK to balance its developing digital journeys at scale , which caters to all customer ’ s needs . “ We ' re aiming
90 January 2023