Santander

The bank was founded in 1957 as Curt Briechle KG Absatzfinanzierung by businessman Curt Briechle in Mönchengladbach as a sales financing company for automobiles. In 1968, the company was converted into a public limited company and renamed Bankhaus Centrale Credit AG.

In 1987, the Spanish bank Banco Santander Central Hispano (BSCH) acquired 100% of the bank and renamed it CC-Bank AG. In 1988, the Royal Bank of Scotland acquired 50% of the CC-Bank's shares. In 1996, the Santander Central Hispano bought back the shares from the Royal Bank of Scotland.

In 2002, the Cologne-based AKB Privat- und Handelsbank merged with the CC-Bank AG. The Cologne headquarter of AKB at Friesenplatz was dissolved. In 2003, the Santander Direkt Bank AG from Frankfurt, which also belonged to the BSCH-Group, was merged with the CC-Bank.

As of 1 October 2004, the bank's market presence was adapted to the corporate design of the Spanish parent company. Since then, the name of the brand was Santander Consumer CC-Bank; for the time being the official company name remained CC-Bank AG. In August 2007 the official renaming in the commercial register to Santander Consumer Bank AG was made.

On 1 July 2008, the Royal Bank of Scotland sold its consumer credit business unit ECF (European Consumer Finance) to Santander Consumer Finance. This included RBS (RD Europe) GmbH with branches in Ratingen (Germany), Houten (Netherlands), Merelbeke (Belgium) and Vienna (Austria), which now belong to the German Santander Consumer Holding GmbH. With the purchase the ComfortCard brand in those countries was also taken over.

As of 1 July 2009, GE Money Bank GmbH in Hanover, which was acquired in November 2008, was merged with the Santander Consumer Bank AG.

In July 2010 it was announced that the German private customer business of SEB will be sold to Banco Santander. The purchase price for the 173 SEB branches amounted to €555 million. As of 31 January 2011, the private customer business with about 1 million customers and about 2,400 employees was transferred to Santander and now operates under Santander Bank – Zweigniederlassung der Santander Consumer Bank AG.

On 1 July 2016, a joint venture in which the Santander Consumer Bank AG holds a 50 percent stake, was launched by the PSA Bank Deutschland GmbH. The PSA Bank offers car financing, leasing products and dealer financing with the Peugeot Bank and Citroën Bank brands. Deposits are available through the PSA Direct Bank.

Criticism

The Santander Consumer Bank AG is not a member of the Employers' organization of the private banking industry and thus not bound by collective agreements. At Santander, according to union information, there is a "proliferation of varying salaries" that has arisen in recent years as a result of acquisitions of banks. Almost one third of the employees work in a company-owned temporary employment agency and outsourced subsidiaries. According to Jörg Reinbrecht from the ver.di Financial Services Division, "even employees who only work on a commission basis have no fixed salary. They work in small branches that only sell loans, nothing else". The bank denies this.

The union ver.di has been negotiating with Santander since February 2012 on a company collective agreement. In particular, the employees taken over from SEB demanded the continuation of their collective agreement for all Santander employees. In April 2013, after 14 months of negotiations, an agreement was reached between Santander and ver.di. For the employees in the branches, a collective agreement came into force retroactively to April 1, 2013. There is still no collective agreement for employees in the head offices; the Santander Consumer Bank has committed to negotiations with ver.di for 2014.

In the spring of 2012 Santander withdrew from the free checking account and demanded from part of the customers account maintenance fees again. The information of the affected customers was packaged as a marketing campaign. In a judgment from November 2012 the district court Mönchengladbach saw in the procedure of the bank a misleading of the customers, a contract change requires the explicit agreement of the customer.

Consumer advocates also criticize inadmissible fees for loans. For example, Santander requires processing fees of up to 3.5 percent of the loan amount for installment loans. Meanwhile, there are several court judgments against Santander because of loan processing fees. Consumer advocates have organized a protection community for bank customers because of the large number of those affecteded, which has already filed lawsuits against banks in 150 cases to repay the fees.

Consumer advocates criticized in 2015 unjustified and inadmissibly high fees for address inquiries, reminders and ruptured direct debits.