Interest and maturities at a glance

advantages

• Small loans are possible from 500 euros.
• Rate breaks can be set up.
• Loans are also given to commercial customers.

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disadvantage

• The interest rates are comparatively high.
• In the event of special repayment and early repayment of the loan, an early repayment penalty is due.
• The vehicle registration certificate must be deposited with the bank as security.

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You can come across the Santander in many places when buying a product or a vehicle. Because the subsidiary of the Spanish Banco Santander Group does not only offer loans itself. Many dealers and marketing partners also submit loan offers, backed by Santander Consumer Bank AG from Mönchengladbach.

We have tested the Santander car loan critically, because a loan sounds good at any bank and is quick to complete. However, it is often advisable to take a look at the specific conditions, because you can only make a good decision if you know all the conditions before taking out a loan. The Santander car loan is one of the earmarked loans that is only suitable for purchasing a vehicle. If, on the other hand, you want to buy furniture or finance a vacation through the Santander, you should take a look at our test of the Santander installment loan. Our Santander loan overview shows you which types of financing the bank also offers.

A brief portrait of Santander

Santander Consumer Bank AG is a German credit institution and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Spanish listed Banco Santander Group. With over 133 million customers, the Santander Group is one of the largest banks in the world. The predecessor of Santander was the CC-Bank, which emerged from Curt Briechle KG Sales Financing, which was founded in Mönchengladbach in 1957. One focus of Santander is consumer lending. According to its own information, Santander is the largest manufacturer-independent financier in the vehicle market. In addition, the money house offers an extensive range of products for business and private customers, from current accounts and investments to securities trading. The headquarters of the company is still Mönchengladbach today.

Who can apply for the Santander car loan?

You can apply for the Santander car loan as a private person or as a trader. The prerequisite is that you have the right creditworthiness for your loan request and can prove a stable income. It is also important that you are domiciled in Germany and that the vehicle you have purchased is registered in Germany.

What can you use the car loan for?

Since the Santander car loan is a special-purpose loan, you can only use it to finance the purchase of a car, motorcycle or mobile home. It doesn’t have to be a new car financing. Rather, it is also possible to finance a used car purchase with the Santander car loan.

The interest on the Santander car financing

When calculating your monthly installment, it is advantageous that the APR is currently fixed and does not depend on your creditworthiness or the term of the loan. At the time of the test, you pay an effective annual interest rate of 3.99 percent for the auto installment loan. In comparison with the offers of other credit institutions, it becomes clear that the Santander installment loan is not one of the cheapest offers in the test. You should definitely do a car loan comparison before making your decision.

Possible loan amount

What is particularly positive about the Santander car loan is that you can get the loan from 500 euros. However, it is also the exception that you only need such a small amount to buy a vehicle. This is a special feature as other banks often do not offer such a mini loan. The bank will give you a maximum of 150,000 euros for the purchase of a high-quality vehicle or if you have less capital. This is also well above the offers of other financial institutions.

Terms

You can repay the Santander loan with a term of twelve to 96 months. You can use the loan calculator on the Santander website to calculate your monthly installment by changing the term.

Special repayment

Santander offers special repayments and repayment of the loan at any time. However, there is a cost to you. Depending on the point in time, you have to pay between 0.5 and one percent early repayment penalty.

Apply for a car loan at Santander online

In principle, it is possible to apply for the car loan entirely online on the Santander website. However, you have to enter data on the desired vehicle on the first page of the application route. We also advise you to be very careful, as the information provided on the website is not sufficient for an online application in our opinion.

Conclusion: There are much better offers on the market

The Santander car loan did not convince us. Both the APR and the other framework conditions are not recommended at the time of the test. In the case of special payments and the early repayment of the Credit you have to expect additional costs. The information provided on the bank’s website about the car loan is only rudimentary and, in our view, does not fully inform you as a consumer. Nevertheless, the loan can be of interest to some customers. Because it was positive that Santander already gives you a mini loan from 500 euros and also takes on larger financings up to 150,000 euros with the appropriate creditworthiness. The terms of the loan also give no cause for criticism.

Before you make a decision, you should definitely find out about the offers of other banks via our car loan comparison. Here you will find significantly more favorable conditions for vehicle financing. In addition, you do not have to deposit the registration certificate as security with the cheapest provider at the time of the test, ING.

We have also tested these products from the Santander Group

We regularly test Santander products. The Santander Group also includes Openbank, which currently offers a free current account and attractive overnight money conditions:

We also explain how you can get in touch with the right contact person at Santander, depending on your concerns.