The first Santander Work Café in the Channel Islands has opened in St Helier this week (Monday 25th January).
This unique space at 13-15 Charing Cross is the former home to Thomas Cook travel agents. It has been designed to offer a new high street banking experience, bringing together finance and the community in a town centre location that is open to everyone.
Over a year of renovations take the building up to the highest standards, with spacious, well ventilated rooms, accessible bathrooms, and easy-to-clean surfaces.
The barista area, which is run by Cargo, features freshly prepared food and sustainably sourced coffee, which are currently available for takeaway. When paying with a Santander International debit card there will be a 30% discount on hot drinks and 15% on freshly prepared food.
Customers will be able to attend face-to-face appointments with banking or mortgage Relationship Managers, however, the five free bookable meeting rooms and co-working stations will not be available for use until physical distancing measures permit.
James Pountney, CEO, Santander International, said: “The Santander Work Café will initially be open to anyone who would like to talk to our team about their banking or mortgage needs. Once COVID-19 restrictions lift, the Santander Work Café will offer a unique banking, meeting, and co-working environment for all Islanders in the heart of St Helier.”
Santander has over 80 Work Cafés in nine countries around the world. As well as the meeting rooms, co-working space, and café experience, customers will be able to meet relationship managers in the building, open and manage accounts and mortgages, and withdraw money by using an ATM.
John Burns, Santander Work Café Director, said: “The team has been working hard over the past few months preparing for our first customers and we are all looking forward to developing the services and, eventually, the events, that will make the Santander Work Café a vibrant and inviting place for the community.”
Under COVID-19-regulations, customers are requested to follow physical distancing within the Santander Work Café, to wear a mask, sanitise hands and use the contact tracing app.
Simon Crowcroft, Connétable of St Helier, said: “The Santander Work Café is a welcome addition to St Helier and another positive development in the regeneration of Charing Cross. Multi-purpose sites such as this show how organisations can work to serve the community and highlight how we can continue to help our town centre adapt to the changing needs of Islanders.”
