Banco Santander to shut 450 branches in Spain
Monday, April 4, 2016 @ 2:00 PM
MASS redundancies and 450 branches closing have been announced by Banco Santander this week.
The financial entity run by Ana Botín, and which bought out the Abbey National in the UK in 2004, will shut 13% of its Spanish branches – mainly the smaller offices with between one and three employees.
Although the exact number of staff members to be made redundant this year has not been announced, based upon the number and size of branches set to go, this could be anything up to 1,350.
This said, some of them should be able to be redeployed in other, larger branches.
High regulatory costs are the main cause of the drastic move, which involves a full restructure of the national arm of the firm with 350 branches being expanded and modernised.
These offices will need extra staff in many cases.
Whether or not some of the workers will have to choose between redundancy or relocation is not clear, but Banco Santander stresses it does not plan to pull out of any of the 2,000 villages, towns and cities it is based in, meaning a number of employees facing redundancy may even get jobs in the same area.
The initial restructure plan, which is under discussion with staff unions at present, is expected to involve early retirement for those who cannot or do not wish to move and who are of the right age.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com