Santander fears bonus clawback will hit London
Tough rules to claw back bankers’ bonuses years after they are paid could put the UK at a competitive disadvantage to rivals globally, Santander’s UK boss Ana Botin said yesterday.
And she warned it could be unfair to penalise what seemed good business decisions at the time, but were later viewed as bad choices with the benefit of hindsight.
“It is important if we want to keep London competitive, that we don’t go too far away from what the US and Europe are doing,” Botin said. “If you look back to decisions made two or three years ago it is obvious what the right thing was, but at the time it was not.”
She spoke as the bank reported profits of £545m in the first half of 2014, up 18 per cent on the year.
Much of its growth has been driven by new customers joining the bank – around a quarter of all those using the current account switching service go to Santander, winning around 200,000 new clients since the service started last year. The growth has raised an extra £4.3bn in deposits.
Its mortgage business has grown, with lending up £2.3bn. And business lending is up £1bn on the year.
At the same time, the economic recovery has driven down bad loans from 2.04 per cent six months ago to 1.96 per cent now.
Santander is looking to float in the near future. Botin said she would wait until regulatory uncertainty died down over the next six months or more before launching her plans.