Santander sends 35,000 bank statements to wrong addresses

Spanish bank Santander has admitted to sending up to 35,000 bank statements to the wrong addresses. The firm, recently voted the worst bank for customer service, said a printing error led to customers being sent the first page of their own bank statement along with the second and third pages of another customer's.

The bank has written to affected customers, informed City watchdog the Financial Services Authority (FSA), and has warned branch and customer services staff not to reveal account information to anyone without adhering to formal security procedures.

Santander said the statements included customers' names, account numbers and details of transactions they had carried out, although the bank denied suggestions that it was enough information to enable someone to commit fraud on customers' accounts.

The error, a possible breach of the Data Protection Act, piles pressure on Santander's new UK chief executive, Ana Patricia Botín, daughter of the global head of Santander Emilio Botín. She flew into London to replace António Horta-Osório, who defected to take charge of rival Lloyds Banking Group in November.

A Santander spokesman said: "We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused and have taken immediate steps to correct this. We take the security of customer and account information extremely seriously so any incident of this nature is treated with the highest priority.

"We want to reassure customers that the risk of fraud on their account has not been increased because of this error and that this is a one-off incident."

Santander said none of the bank statements that were sent to the wrong address contained information on customers' addresses.

Martin Lewis of MoneySavingExpert.com said: "Someone needs to grab hold of the reins at Santander. The bank is continually coming bottom in customer service surveys and this is yet another example why.

"The thing people need most from their bank account is trust that it'll be secure – sending statements to the wrong people doesn't do that. The time when it could blame takeover teething troubles are long gone. It needs to sort this or customers will migrate quicker than a parrot seeing the snow."

Santander could be hit with a hefty fine from the FSA, which has a history of taking a tough stance on firms that lose or reveal customers' personal data.