Santander slips back
Profits at Santander UK, which bought Alliance & Leicester and much of Bradford & Bingley during the financial crisis, fell 3% in the past three months as it was forced to hold an extra £30 billion of liquid assets to meet tougher regulation.
The bank, run by Ana Botin since Antonio Horta-Osorio was poached by Lloyds, confirmed it is back on course for a London stock-market flotation towards the end of this year.
Botin said she had set four targets: "becoming a more customer-driven retail bank, improving customer satisfaction, diversifying our business mix and expanding our growing SME franchise".
She said customer complaints were improving but added: "We intend to examine the root cause of these complaints as a means of addressing any systemic issues that may exist." Santander was criticised last year as being the worst bank in the UK at resolving complaints within eight weeks.
UK profits dipped to £572 million but were better than the fourth quarter of 2010, when they were £511 million.
The Spanish parent bank said its first-quarter profit dropped 5% to 2.1 billion (£1.9 billion).
