Spain's Santander to rebrand British banking divisions

Spanish bank Santander said yesterday that it will merge its British banking divisions Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley under the Santander brand next year.

"All UK businesses will adopt the Santander global brand and name," Europe's second biggest bank said in a statement.

"Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley savings will all become known as Santander by the end of 2010."

Santander hopes to save around £180 million from the integration process. It is spending £12 million in the rebranding, but gave no indication about potential job losses.

In recent years, Santander has expanded rapidly in Britain, where many high street banks have been savaged by the global financial crisis and credit crunch that erupted in 2007. Last September, Santander bought part of the assets of troubled British lender Bradford & Bingley for £612 million.

And the bank bought Alliance & Leicester in July in a deal worth £1.26 billion.

That came four years after it acquired British mortgage lender Abbey National in 2004 for £9.2 billion. The group said yesterday that Abbey and Bradford & Bingley savings would be rebranded as Santander in the first three months of 2010. Alliance & Leicester will follow by the end of 2010.

"Bringing together the three brands means it will be even easier for customers to manage their finances as they will have access to over 1,300 branches once the change is complete," said Antonio Horta-Osorio, chief executive officer of Santander's UK businesses, in the statement.

Santander, founded in 1857, is Europe's second biggest bank by stock market capitalisation after number one HSBC.

The Spanish giant has 90 million customers around the world, operating across 40 countries with a global workforce of 170,000 people. It has 25 million customers in Britain.