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11 January 2010

Santander officially lands on UK high streets

by Sona Hathi, Editor, Melcrum

Spanish banking group Santander today officially renames hundreds of branches of two of its acquired UK banks – Abbey and Bradford & Bingley – as it expands its global business to the UK. The takeover makes it the UK's fifth largest banking provider with 25 million customers.

A brief history
Abbey
1849: National Freehold Land and Building Society formed. Merged with the Abbey National Building Society in 1944 to form Abbey National
1989: Became first building society to float on London stock exchange
2004: Bought by Santander in 2004 – picked up the Santander "flame" logo

Alliance & Leicester
1852: Leicester Permanent Benefit Society formed - creating the origins of A&L.
1985: A&L formed by merger between the Alliance Building Society and Leicester Building Society.
2008: Share price slumps due to the credit crunch. Santander buys the firm.

Bradford & Bingley
1851: Bradford Second Equitable Building Society and the Bingley, Morton and Shipley Permanent Benefit Building Society both formed.
1964: Bradford and Bingley complete merger.
2000: B&B demutualized and shares floated on London stock exchange.
2008: Part-nationalized after being engulfed by economic crisis. Santander buys its branches and retail deposit accounts.

The bank will unveil 500 branches on high streets in London and South East England today, with Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton – the bank's celebrity ambassador – opening the first in Central London.

The remaining 500 Abbey and Bradford & Bingley branches will be transformed over the next two weeks, and the 300 branches of Alliance & Leicester will change later this year.

The large-scale rebrand will cost £30 million and includes refurbishment of 1,000 branches, new uniforms for 9,500 staff, renaming of 971 ATM machines and 27 company websites, as well as new internal internal and external corporate literature.

Communicating the change
The renaming was announced to the public in May 2009, but Ryan Funnell, corporate communications manager, and Anthony Frost, head of corporate communications at Abbey told Melcrum in an article on the Internal Comms Hub last year that an extensive communication strategy was executed to ensure that staff across all three banks were properly informed of and engaged in the changes.

"General feedback from staff and the media has so far been well balanced, between lamenting the loss of the three brands on the high street while acknowledging that the change to Santander makes commercial sense," said Funnell.

"Among other things, our people told us our communications made them feel relief in a time of uncertainty; more positive about the future; and excited at being part of a large group," he added.

Have your say
Will you be communicating a rebrand this year? Do you have a strategy in place? Tell us about it below.

Recommended resources:

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How to ensure you're taking the right approach to engagement

TOP TIPS: Helping employees adapt to change

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