There are reports the Spanish bank Santander could be considering floating a stake in its UK arm on the London Stock Exchange.
The Eurozone’s biggest bank, which also owns Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley, is yet to confirm anything final, but there are rumours it is speculating a potential public share offer.
The news follows the success of a similar move with Santader’s Brazilian subsidiary.
The UK arm of the Spanish bank provides around 16 per cent of overall profits.
The Sunday Times said yesterday that Santander was looking at selling a minority 25 per cent stake in the UK business; which could raise funds to buy the 300 branches due to be sold by Royal Bank of Scotland.
A power cut yesterday caused trouble for Santander customers in the UK, as cash machines and online banking failed for six hours. The incident occurred after internal testing, meaning customers were unable to use cash points or online banking. Alliance & Leicester was unaffected.
Across Santander and the banks it has bought in the UK, it currently has around 25 million savers and borrowers.
Mon, Feb 8, 2010
Business, Finance, UK