For other meanings, see Cahoots

Cahoots

Cahoots is the fourth album by Canadian/American rock group The Band released in 1971 and was their last all-original studio album for four years. It received only mixed reviews when it first appeared. Robbie Robertson wrote or co-wrote all but one of the album tracks, Bob Dylan's "When I Paint My...

.

cahoot is the internet division of Santander UK

Santander UK

Santander UK plc is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Spanish Santander Group. Based in the United Kingdom, it operates under the name of Santander. Santander is the third largest bank in the UK in terms of deposits, the second largest in terms of mortgages held, and the fourth largest in terms of...

 plc, the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 subsidiary of Banco Santander of Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

. Cahoot was launched in 2000 as the internet-based banking brand of Abbey National

Abbey National

Abbey National plc was a UK-based bank and former building society, which latterly traded under the Abbey brand name. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of Grupo Santander of Spain in 2004, and was rebranded as Santander in January 2010, forming Santander UK along with the savings business of the...

 plc, and at the end of 2004 had some 650,000 customers. Cahoot is based in Coventry

Coventry

Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

History

Cahoot offered interest-free overdrafts and credit cards at launch to its first 25,000 customers, but was beset by technical issues that affected the website.

There have been several instances of security or operational failures with the website. The initial launch of the bank in 2000 resulted in the website crashing. One case in November 2004 was a security scare in which it was revealed that customers' accounts could be accessed without going through security procedures, after an update to the online banking

Online banking

Online banking allows customers to conduct financial transactions on a secure website operated by their retail or virtual bank, credit union or building society.-Features:...

 system.

On 15 October 2008 and 16 October 2008, the secure section of the Cahoot website became unavailable, due, according to Cahoot, to a power outage in Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

. Although the main page of the website operated normally, it proved impossible for customers to log in to access their savings, leaving them unable to access their accounts and carry out transactions. Call centre staff were also unable to carry out any transactions for customers.

Customers were able to access their accounts again normally on 17 October 2008.

Prior to takeover of parent bank Abbey by Santander, Cahoot recovered from its launch and security issues to achieve over 600,000 accounts and a significant share of the unsecured lending market in the UK. It was consistently rated in Consumers' Association and Guardian surveys in the top three best banks in the UK for service and pricing.

Initially led by Tim Murley, the bank was taken over by Tim Sawyer in 2002 who was later succeeded by John Goddard in 2005.

Cahoot's business model involves a very small operational staff, with IT services initially (2003) outsourced to IBM using their Software on Demand model.

While Abbey was renamed under its parent's brand in January 2010, Cahoot and other specialist brands will be retained by Santander for now. However, bad debt has affected profitability and marketing spend has largely ceased, with most marketing staff being redeployed elsewhere.

In January 2010, Brand Republic reported that Santander were inviting bids from advertising agencies for a plan to merge all its online banking services across Europe which do not carry the Santander name, including Cahoot, under one single brand.

Cahoot will introduce the Faster Payments Service

Faster Payments Service

Faster Payments Service is a UK banking initiative to reduce payment times between different banks' customer accounts from three working days using the long-established BACS system, to near real time...

 in January 2012, having initially promised to do so in 2008.

Products

Cahoot currently offers savings account

Savings account

Savings accounts are accounts maintained by retail financial institutions that pay interest but cannot be used directly as money . These accounts let customers set aside a portion of their liquid assets while earning a monetary return...

s.

In 2006, Cahoot ceased all new sales of credit card

Credit card

A credit card is a small plastic card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services...

s, personal loans and mortgages

Mortgage loan

A mortgage loan is a loan secured by real property through the use of a mortgage note which evidences the existence of the loan and the encumbrance of that realty through the granting of a mortgage which secures the loan...

.

In October 2009, Cahoot withdrew their Webcard facility. Cahoot's Webcard generated a one-use card number for each online transaction (Controlled Payment Number

Controlled Payment Number

A controlled payment number is an alias for one's credit card number...

), designed to combat fraud.

In January 2010, Cahoot informed customers that their loan limits had been "reviewed" and given 30 days notice that the withdraw service was disappearing. This effectively signals the end of Cahoots flexible banking service.

In February 2010, Cahoot withdrew its current account from service (for new customers). This leaves their savings product as the only product currently offered to new customers.