Santander U.K. to Hire Additional 600 People in 2010 as Home Lending Rises

Santander U.K., a unit of Spain’s Banco Santander SA, said it plans to hire over 600 new workers in the second half as the bank increases mortgage lending.

The new jobs will include additional employees for branches and administration roles, the bank said today in a statement.

“Our transformation into a full-service commercial bank is progressing,” said Santander U.K. Chief Executive Officer Antonio Horta Osorio in the statement. The bank is “investing to support growth,” he said.

Santander’s U.K. operations include the former businesses of former building societies including Abbey, Alliance & Leicester Plc and elements of Bradford & Bingley Plc. It may sell a stake in its British unit through an initial public offering in London, CEO Alfredo Saenz said today. The bank, which has more than 1,300 branches, is in the final stages of talks to buy more than 300 branches from Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and expects a “solution” next month, he said.

The bank said it increased its lending to “small and medium-sized” businesses by 21 percent to 7.5 billion pounds.

Net mortgage lending rose 67 percent to 3.3 billion pounds from a year earlier, though that marked a decline from 5.6 billion pounds in the second half of 2009. Gross loans rose 14 percent to 12.3 billion pounds, while capital repayments reached 9 billion pounds.

Santander U.K.’s home-loan market share was 19.1 percent, compared with 16.3 percent in the first half of 2009. The bank’s ratio of non-performing loans declined to 1.42 percent from 1.43 percent in the first quarter, the company said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jon Menon in London at jmenon1@bloomberg.net;

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