 Kids' Money
It would be tough not to notice the arrival of Santander on the UK high street in the last few years. Indeed, over the last decade, particularly in the wake of the Credit Crunch and banking crisis, the Spanish bank has acquired three big names of British banking: Abbey, Alliance and Leicester and Bradford and Bingley, and is now the biggest bank in Europe by market capitalisation, knocking HSBC off the top spot. But who exactly is this relative newcomer to British banking, and where has the bank come from? Banco Santander in its current structure was created through the 1999 merger of Banco Santander (founded in 1857) and Banco Hispanoamericano (founded 1900) to create Banco Santander Central Hispano, and a name change to the more simple 'Banco Santander' came around in August 2007. It acquired Abbey National in November 2004, rebranding it 'Abbey', then completed the acquisition of Bradford and Bingley in September 2008 and Alliance and Leicester later in October. The company now has over 500 branches across the UK, making it one of the most commonly found banks on the British high street. By the end of 2010, all of these acquisitions will be merged together under the Santander name. Santander's acquisition of these banks, along with its sponsorship of the world title winning Mclaren-Mercedes formula one racing team has seen its brand recognition in the UK leap from 20% to 82% by September 2009. Its operations run in over 30 countries worldwide, with the brunt of its business coming from the European and Latin America retail banking sector. Indeed, 82% of the Grupo Santander's profit is generated from retail banking. One important thing to note is that if you are banking with Alliance and Leicester, Bradford and Bingley or Abbey, your deposits will be much safer after acquisition than they had been prior to that. Of course, should these banks have collapsed during the financial crisis, then your deposits would have been covered up to £50,000 by the government anyway, but now, due to the much stronger consolidated group, backed by the largest bank in Europe, your savings and other deposits will be even more secure. Just be ready for the name change when it comes around during 2010: Alliance and Leicester, Abbey and Bradford and Bingley will all be grouped together. For more information, check out the website for Santander.
© Copyright 1997 - 2010 by David McCurrach. All rights reserved. Revised 2/15/2010. |
