Its return on equity is marginally lower at 17

Its return on equity is marginally lower at 17.4 per cent, but its net interest margin – the measure of how profitable it is lending money – is better than the UK banks, at 2.35 per cent.When assessing the plethora of often opaque and complex charges employed by UK banks, the benefits of Santander’s system are more difficult to establish. But questions have been raised over whether the bank is really more efficient than its British rivals and whether it does offer customers a cheaper deal.
On a corporate efficiency and profitability level, Santander does seem evenly matched with the UK banks. Banco Santander has fought its campaign to buy Abbey with promises of lower charges and better service to the millions of UK customers it hopes to gain through the deal. So this is really about targeting them with these messages when they need it most, in a way that’s a bit of fun and not lecturing.”He said he did not believe that the tactics had been employed anywhere else “It’s the first urine-activated ad, as far as I’m aware So it’s definitely something of a first for us,” he said..

Drunk drivers killed or injured 580 of their own passengers last year, as well as 310 occupants of other vehicles and 45 pedestrians and cyclists.Mr Knackstead told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “When men go to the pub, they’ve got to go to the toilet, and the fact is that 80 per cent of people involved in drink-driving crashes in New Zealand are men. The posters have thus been placed inside discreetly located urinals.Last year 131 people were killed in crashes caused by alcohol, up from 108 in 2003. The first bears the words: “If you drink and drive, you’re a bloody idiot.” The second states: “If you drink then don’t drive, you’re a bloody legend.”Men will not need any particular expertise, as Mr Knackstead explained. “It’s a fairly large ad, so they’re not going to have to have an acute sense of aim.” The safety authority has also taken into account what it calls “urinal etiquette”, noting that most men head for a corner spot. Andy Knackstead, a spokesman for the authority, said yesterday: “What better time and place to get the drink-driving message across than in a pub?”The heat-activated billboards show the silhouette of two cars side by side, with the headline: “Which car will you piss off in tonight?” When urine reaches the advert, two images are exposed: one of a crumpled car and one of a taxi, intact.

Foreigners were also issued with phones on a parallel network that could call outside the country but could not receive calls from inside North Korea. A few months later, the system was shut down without explanation.. In what it claims may be a world first, New Zealand is to place drink-drive billboards inside urinals that will be activated when men relieve themselves. By the end of this month, nearly 260 pubs will display the adverts in their men’s lavatories.The unorthodox concept was dreamt up by the Land Transport Safety Authority, which says that most drink-drive crashes are caused by men. British diplomats were told they were unavailable, no explanation.There have reportedly been stirrings of dissidence in the party elite and the military, who were provided with mobile phones for domestic calls about 18 months ago. A pack of brochures on 100 questions about Britain was confiscated by sinister security men, wearing the ubiquitous badge with the face of Kim Il Sung. As a British journalist began explaining to a North Korean girl leafing through a brochure on Scotland that “Edinburgh is the Pyongyang of Scotland”, the conversation was abruptly terminated by the minders.At a lunch held for North Koreans who had studied English in Eastbourne to meet the visiting Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell, 18 did not show up.