Glasgow shares in Santander jobs boost

Santander, the Spanish banking giant with a growing presence in the UK, is to create 400 call-centre jobs at sites in Glasgow, Leicester and Liverpool.

The bank said the posts, which add to the 600 additional branch-based roles announced in July, would support business generated by its aggressive push into the UK market.

The latest roles would ensure the group "continues to improve service", Santander added.

Earlier this month it emerged that the bank had the highest proportion of customer complaints in the UK in the first half of the year.

Santander currently has 22,500 staff in the UK. It has 25 million customer accounts and 1,300 branches following its acquisitions of Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and parts of Bradford & Bingley. The group received 216,158 complaints in the six months to June.

Nigel Cotgrove, national officer of the Communication Workers Union, said: "This is welcome news for the UK banking sector and provides valuable new job opportunities in Liverpool, Leicester and Glasgow.

"At a time when unemployment is rising and many workers in other banks are losing their jobs, it is good to see Santander investing in jobs for the future, which will also help to boost customer service."

Santander has seen new products such as its Zero current account drive its market share in the UK, while its lending to small and medium businesses has grown 20 per cent this year.

Earlier this year, the group said it was on track to open a million new accounts for the second year in a row, and posted a 10 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to 875 million for the first six months of the year.

Meanwhile, Santander has entered talks to buy a portfolio of its leased UK offices and retail branches from landlord Mapeley as part of a plan to bring more of its property estate back on its balance sheet, a spokesman for the bank said yesterday.

Mapeley bought most of the UK offices and branches occupied by Abbey National, the UK building society later taken over by Santander, for 457m in 2000.