LONDON: Santander UK has outlined clear plans to meet new ringfencing rules, appointing heads of the carved-out retail and corporate divisions that it intends to create by September.
The UK bank will split into a retail arm for personal and small business customers, and a corporate bank for institutional clients and its markets business, according to an internal memo seen by the Financial Times.
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The details of the UK overhaul were outlined to staff on Tuesday as the bank’s Spanish parent launched another sweeping management reshuffle across the broader group.
In the UK, Javier San Felix, global head of retail across the group, will move to London to become head of the ringfenced retail bank. Steve Pateman, head of UK banking, will run the non-ringfenced bank.
“This will also prepare us, over time, to conform with the new regulatory regime under the Banking Reform Act,” said Nathan Bostock, chief executive of Santander UK, who will lead the holding company that will straddle both businesses.
He said Santander UK would start to operate under the new structure “more fully” from the end of September.
However, he warned that the “detailed structure” would take “quite some time” to establish, although it is expected to be fully implemented by January 2018 — one year ahead of the deadline.
At the same time, Santander announced in Madrid that Ignacio Benjumea would leave his executive role as general secretary and become an external board director, while Juan Rodriguez Inciarte had resigned from the board for personal reasons.
New appointments included Rami Aboukhair as the country head for the group’s Spanish division, and the elevation of Jaime Pérez Renovales to group secretary and secretary of the board.
“These changes complete the management team which José Antonio Álvarez and I began restructuring in 2014,” said Ana Botín, Santander’s executive chairman. “We must simplify and make our organisation more competitive.”
