Santander recruits more staff as UK growth continues

SPANISH banking giant Santander today said it was on track to open a million new accounts for the second year in a row as it maintained its aggressive push into the UK market.

The company, which owns Abbey, Alliance & Leicester, and the savings business of Bradford & Bingley, opened 519,000 new accounts in the first half of 2010, taking in 4.6bn in retail deposits.

Santander is now second only to Lloyds in the savings market and announced plans to add more than 600 new staff across its 1,300-strong branch network to support growth. The firm has 22,500 UK staff.

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Pre-tax profits rose 10 per cent to 875m for the first six months of the year although Santander also expects credit demand to remain "subdued" in a challenging market.

Santander rebranded the Abbey and B&B branches in January, with Alliance & Leicester to follow later this year. It is now targeting its 25 million customers with extra savings and investment products through its branch network.

Chief executive Antonio Horta-Osario said: "We are continuing to pass on the benefits of being the most efficient UK bank to our customers with more best buy mentions than any UK competitor."

The bank is currently writing around one in five of every new mortgages in the UK, with gross lending of 12.3bn during the first half of 2010.

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This is 14 per cent ahead of a year ago, but down on the 15.6bn it lent during the second half of last year as banking rivals gradually recover from the crisis and put up more competition.

Loss provisions were down to 187m in the second quarter of 2010 from 204m in the first three months of the year.

Santander is also targeting growth in small business lending, which was up more than 20 per cent in the first half from a low base.