Spanish giant Santander has stepped up the high street banking revolution by kicking off the rebranding of its Abbey and Bradford & Bingley branches.

Around 300 branches in London and the South East will be the first to undergo the name change, with another 700 outlets across the rest of Britain getting the treatment within the next three weeks.

The Spanish bank, which bought Abbey in 2004 and added B&B and Alliance & Leicester to its portfolio in 2008, will carry out a similar exercise on its 300 A&L branches in the autumn.

Abbey and B&B customers will be able to carry out transactions in any Santander branch, regardless of which group they formerly belonged to.

They can continue to use their Abbey and B&B cheques and credit cards, although these will be changed to Santander when they come up for renewal.

Santander now has 25 million UK customers, and is actively seeking to grow its share of the current account and mortgage markets.

It is marking the start of its rebranding exercise with the launch of its fee-free Zero account, which is available to mortgage customers only, while Abbey and B&B current account customers will henceforth be able to make free cash withdrawals from Santander ATMs in Spain.

Alison Brittain, Santander’s executive director of UK retail banking, told Sky News a shake-up in the banking sector was long overdue.

“This of course gives us massive efficiencies but the most important element is how good this will be for UK high street and for competition in the financial services industry,” she said.

“Santander is both a very safe and secure organisation as a global bank and a challenger to the established names on the high street.”

Ms Brittain said she had sympathy for those who would miss the historic British names, but pointed out that the 150-year-old Spanish bank has already enjoyed five years operating in the UK as Abbey.

Kevin Mountford, head of banking at moneysupermarket.com, said: “Santander will be keen to maintain and grow their position as a major player in UK retail banking and they are challenging their rivals by offering competitive rates and unique deals to their customers.”

Original Source – Sky News