New boss for Santander after £2.65bn TSB deal

Santander UK is set for a year of upheaval as it prepares to appoint a new boss and cut branches after its £2.65billion takeover of TSB.

The Spanish-owned banking giant’s chief executive, Mike Regnier, announced in the wake of the TSB deal that he would step down by the end of March 2026.

And he has admitted that branches are likely to close and jobs lost due to the merger, which is expected to see the TSB name disappear from the High Street. The task of integrating the business will fall to Regnier’s successor.

Two insiders – group chief risk officer Mahesh Aditya, and Enrique Alvarez Labiano, head of Santander UK’s retail and business bank – are said to have been shortlisted for the role.

All change: Santander UK is set for a year of upheaval as it prepares to appoint a new boss and cut branches

They will also have to grapple with the continuing fall-out from a car finance scandal which has engulfed a number of lenders and prompted Santander to delay its third quarter UK results.

Santander has criticised an £11billion scheme set up by watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority to compensate motorists who were mis-sold car loans between 2007 and 2024. It comes a year after intense speculation the bank was preparing to exit Britain, which persisted despite denials from the Madrid-based group’s boss Ana Botin.

Stepping down: Chief executive Mike Regnier

Instead, she swooped in to buy TSB from its Spanish owner Sabadell in the summer, seeing off a rival offer from Barclays. The deal will create the third largest bank in the country by current account balances and the fourth by mortgages, with 28m retail and business customers. At the time it was announced in July, TSB employed 5,000 staff operating out of 175 branches while Santander UK had 349 branches with 18,000 employees.

Santander expects to shave 13 per cent off the combined costs of Santander UK and TSB as a result of the takeover.

Regnier has said savings will ‘come from a number of areas’ such as IT and back-office functions. He added there would be ‘no point having two branches in the same town serving the same customers’, signalling likely closures.

John Cronin, managing director of research firm SeaPoint Insights, said: ‘I expect the scale of the staff and branch cuts over the next couple of years will be substantial.’