Banco Santander will abandon plans to split its U.K. operations in two. The Spanish bank “seeks greater flexibility to shift operations out of the U.K. if needed because of Brexit,”
the
Financial Times
reported.
U.K. rules require banks with more than £25 billion of deposits to separate their consumer business from riskier investment banking activities by 2019, the
FT
report noted. Earlier this year, Santander announced plans to create a new standalone bank to hold its corporate and investment banking operations. “But it is now expected to announce a strategy shift in January after deciding that the likely disruption from Brexit makes the complexity of creating two viable standalone banks to difficult,” the
FT
article said. Instead, it is considering putting “as many U.K. activities as possible” into its consumer and small-business operations “while moving the remaining group of businesses into the London-based branch of its Spanish parent,” the article said. (Source:
Financial Times
, Nov. 28, 2016.)
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