Aviva signing five-year deal for Santander to sell its products

The Spanish bank will offer the insurer's life-protection policies to customers through its 1,300 UK branches, as well as over the telephone and online.

The agreement runs for five years from next June and adds to Santander's existing arrangement to sell Aviva general insurance in the UK.

Santander will exclusively sell life-insurance products from Aviva as part of the deal.

Aviva also has similar deals for the distribution of its life products through other high street banks.

Aviva – which previously sold insurance products in the UK under the old Norwich Union brand – now has more than 90 so-called bancassurance agreements worldwide.

It said the deal with Santander "enhances Aviva's competitive position by providing access to million of bank customers".

The deal also marks another step forward in Santander's UK growth plans, with the group rapidly expanding in this country, having snapped up Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and the savings arm of Bradford & Bingley in recent years.

It is also poised to take on more than 300 branches which are being being offloaded by Royal Bank of Scotland.