Our website uses technology to collect information about its use, to distinguish between users, to help us provide you with a good experience and to allow us to improve the site and the service we offer. This means that when you visit our website, cookies or similar technologies will be placed on your computer or other device.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer, smartphone or other device when you visit our website. A cookie file is stored on your device and allows us, or our third party partners (see below) to recognise you and make your visit easier and more useful to you when you revisit our website.
How does Santander Consumer Finance use cookies?
Cookies allow us to recognise users (where appropriate), tailor the content on our website to fit the needs of our website’s visitors and helps us improve the user experience. Without certain types of cookies enabled, we can’t guarantee that the website and your experience of it are as we intended it to be.
We use cookies to obtain information about your visits and about the device you use to access our website. This includes where available, your IP address and pseudonymous identifiers, operating system and browser type and, depending on the cookie, also includes the reporting of statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns.
Here are some examples of how we use cookies
- If you ever ask us to ‘Remember my ID’ to allow you to log on more easily, we’ll use a cookie to make it work.
- Without cookies enabled you can’t apply online for our products. This is because our application forms use cookies to make sure that your application is secure and protected from fraud.
- Our website analytics services, categorised as ‘Experience and insight’ use cookies so we can see how visitors reach our website and the path they take through it. This helps us improve our service to you.
Types of cookies
The length of time a cookie stays on your device depends on its type. We use two types of cookies on our website:
- Session cookies are temporary cookies which only exist during the time you use the website (or more strictly, until you close the browser after using the website). Session cookies help our website remember what you chose on the previous page, avoiding the need to re-enter information and improve your experience whilst using the website.
- Persistent cookies stay on your device after you’ve visited our website. For example, if you tick the ‘Remember my ID’ box when you log onto one of our services a persistent cookie will be used, so that the website remembers you the next time you use it. Persistent cookies help us identify you as a unique visitor.
Third party websites
Our website may link through to third party websites that may also use cookies which we don’t control. We recommend that you check the privacy and cookie policies of those websites for information about the cookies they may use and the collection of personal data. We can’t accept any responsibility for any content contained in these third party websites.
Tracking technologies in our emails
As well as the cookies we use on our website, we use web beacons and link tracking in emails. Using both technologies means we can try to improve the emails we send you.
Web beacons help us understand whether you’ve opened an email, what time and date that was, how often you re-open it, what sort of device and software you used and your IP address.
Link tracking helps us understand who has clicked through from an email to visit our website. We use a unique link in each email, so when you click on one of these links you are first redirected to our mailing company server, which logs the click, before arriving at the relevant page on our website.
Don’t want tracking technologies in email?
If you don’t want to accept tracking technologies, you can choose to:
- Not open any of our emails
- Avoid clicking any links if you’ve opened an email, or
- Set your browser security settings to block all cookies.
The cookies we use
To help you understand cookies and the reasons for them, we’ve provided a description of each cookie we use:
Essential cookies
These cookies are essential for the running of our website.
They cannot be disabled for the following reasons:
- they allow us to remember your cookie preferences;
- they allow us to see if something isn’t working properly, so we can fix it quickly.
The table below details the essential cookies that we use.
| Cookie Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| OptanonAlertBoxClosed OptanonConsent eupubconsent | Used to show cookie consent and remember your choices about cookies on this website. Where you’ve previously indicated a preference, it will be stored in these cookies so the site remembers it when you come back. | 1 year from being set |
| _Host-PHPSESSID PHPSESSID | A randomly generated token to identify your session. This token is used when making online bookings for events such as training courses in order to pass messages from the booking system to your browser. | When your session has ended |
| ee_cookie_test | Used to test whether you have allowed cookies to determine whether or not online event bookings will be possible. | 1 day from being set |
| LPSessionID LPSID-57208801 lpTestCookiennnnnnnn LPVID LPVisitorID LPSID-nnnnnnnn ADRUM_BT1 ADRUM_BTa ADRUMM_BTs SameSite | Makes sure that you can use ‘chat’ to contact us and ask questions when you’re using our website. | Up to 1 year from being set |
| vuid __cf_bm | These are vimeo cookies and are used to play videos. | 2 years from being set |
| XSRF-TOKEN | This cookie is written to help with site security in preventing Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks. | When your session has ended |
| scukwidget_session scukportal_session | Used to help remember your choices when using the finance calculator. | When your session has ended |
Experience and insight cookies
These cookies help us to make sure you have the best possible experience on our website:
- they help us to make the website easier to use and help you find what you need more easily;
- they help us to test and improve the content you see; and
- we can understand if you found out about our products and services through a price comparison website.
The table below details the experience and insight cookies that we use.
| Cookie Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| _ga | Used to distinguish users. | 2 years from being set |
| _gat | Used to limit the number of messages being sent to Google from your browser. | 1 minute from being set |
| _gid | Used to distinguish users. | 24 hours from being set |
| JSESSIONID | Used to monitor the availability and performance of some of our websites. | When your session has ended |
| _gat_gtag_xxxxxxxx | Measures website performance and tracks customer behaviour to improve your ongoing customer experience. | When your session has ended |
| _ga_TRWH8NELNR | Used to distinguish users. | 2 years from being set |
Managing cookies
Deleting and controlling cookies in your browser
Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org
Find out how to manage cookies on popular browsers:
To find information relating to other browsers, visit the browser developers website.
To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.