I can understand your concerns John, here at Citywire we've been bombarded with complaints about the poor level of customer service provided by Santander.

However, the good news is that if you don’t want your account to be transferred to Santander you can choose to opt out.

If you would like to stay with RBS you could consider asking to be transferred to a Scottish branch, as Santander has only bought RBS branches in England.* However, if you live in England and regularly need to visit your branch this may not be a feasible option.

In which case, you need to start thinking about who you would prefer to bank with. You can afford to take your time when making this decision as RBS has said they will be writing to customers over the next 18 months to notify customers of changes - and until then there will be no immediate changes to your account.

You can check out how other readers rate banks on customer service on our forum: ‘Fed up with Santander? Which bank offers a better alternative?’** And it might also be worth noting that when we ran a straw poll asking people which bank they think offers the best customer service, First Direct came out top.

There are also two RBS branches in London, which go under different names, that will not be moving to Santander - Drummonds in Trafalgar Square and Child & Co at the top end of Fleet Street. I am currently waiting for a response from RBS as to whether customers can request a transfer to one of these branches.

* http://citywire.co.uk/mo...t-means-for-you/a420003

** http://citywire.co.uk/mo...ter-alternative/b421370

According to a spokesperson for RBS, if a customer wishes to transfer to either Drummonds or Child & Co they can do so.

She said while customers in these branches do tend to be more affluent, the banks are not private and customers do not have to earn above a certain amount in order to hold an account.

It appears these two branches have managed to escape Santander’s clutches because for one reason or another they come under the regional network in Scotland.

What happens if you do not want to move your RBS A/cs to Edinborough, but have RBS Credit Cards, Isa's, or investments or similar?
Do you have to move them to another bank before the deadline? Or, is it advisable to move those to Edinborough, even though you want local branch service.
I have noted that currently in the changeover to Santander they are making mistakes by debiting and crediting the wrong accounts of customers who have accounts at both Abbey and Alliance & Leicester. It seems that their systems have difficulties with recognizing the difference between a Santander A&L A/c and a Santander Abbey a/c. As such I would not consider moving to Santander.

My thanks for the helpful guidance posted on this forum in just a single day!

I sense that the overwhelming view on this site and elsewhere is that Santander is a long long way from achieving the administration skills required of a busy high street bank.

It is such a shame that by sheer inertia our family banking connection with RBS could be severed after almost fifty years. Not only do I wish to continue with RBS, but our family's bank manager at RBS wishes to keep our accounts and thus promotes the attraction of Drummonds and Childs.

Victoria's two posts above are encouraging. Emanuel's post is relevant to our family situation with a need to reassure ourselves about RBS credit card and internet operations. Matters are complicated further by uncertainty on these, and the timetable for actions required to initiate account transfers.

Its a mess and our family are not pleased by the hassle that will inevitably arise if we do nothing and allow ourselves to be sucked into Santander's grasp. By "opting out" there will still be some hassle in reorganising direct debits, statement production and paperwork concerning a branch transfer within RBS.

Decisions decisions decisions!

Also, I forgot to add this; As a property investment business customer would I be better off with Drummonds, Child & Co or move to RBS in Scotland, which of these banks would be most suitable for my business ? And why does Natwest not offer a free service to take RBS customers on the same terms and conditions as they have with RBS or could Santander take legal action for poaching them ? Also is this not a great opportunity for HSBC / Barclays to strike at RBS customers whilst there is so much negative press about Santander going on ? The banks appear to be sleeping giants and seem to miss good opportunities that stare them in the face.