Cahoot

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cahoot

Type	Division of Abbey National plc
Founded	2000
Headquarters	Coventry, United Kingdom
Key people	John Goddard, Managing Director
Industry	Finance and Insurance
Products	Financial Services
Slogan	Who would you rather be in cahoots with?
Website	www.cahoot.com

cahoot is an internet bank in the United Kingdom, launched by Abbey, which is now part of Grupo Santander of Spain. The bank was launched in 2000 as the internet bank of Abbey, and as at the end of 2004 had some 650,000 customers. cahoot is based in Coventry, England.

1 History
2 Products
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] History

The launch of cahoot was marred by technical issues that prevented many prospective customers accessing the website. At launch cahoot offered interest free overdrafts and credit cards to its first 25,000 customers as a pricing strategy.

In November 2004 cahoot was hit by a security scare whereby customers statements and balances could be accessed without going through security procedures, following an update to its online banking system.

Prior to takeover by Santander, cahoot recovered from its launch and security issues to achieve over 600k accounts and a significant share of the unsecured lending market in UK. It was consistently rated in Consumers Association and Guardian surveys as top 3 best banks in UK for service and pricing.

Initially led by Tim Murley, the bank was taken over by Tim Sawyer in 2002 who was later later succeeded by John Goddard in 2005. Murley remains at abbey as head of wealth management whilst Sawyer left at start of 2005. Intruigingly the Times newspaper, post his departure, reported that Sawyer was a long time member of the intelligence community and had returned to a more active role.

The future of cahoot remains unclear as bad debt has marred profitbability. Santander states it remains committed to the brand but marketing spend has largely ended and most marketing staff redeployed.

[edit] Products

Cahoot offers current accounts, savings accounts, webcard. Within its product range, cahoot's innovate webcard is notable for its ability to generate an individual, one use card number for each online transaction.

In 2006 Cahoot closed all new sales of credit cards, personal loans and mortgages and redirects all enquires to its parent bank, Abbey. In line with those closures it has increased many of its interest rates for existing customers.