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Santander to buy RBS branches

Dominic Welling dominic.welling@consumerchoices.co.uk

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has agreed to sell 318 of its branches to Santander.

Santander, the Spanish lending giant that has already bought the British brands Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley, has acquired the set of RBS branches for £350 million.

The sale comprises of 311 RBS branded branches in England and Wales and 7 NatWest branded branches in Scotland.

Customer accounts attached to these branches will also be sold in the deal.

RBS - which is 84% owned by the taxpayer - was required to split up its business by the European Commission last year, following concerns about competition.

Stephen Hester, chief executive at RBS, said: "This is an important milestone in our restructuring work and complements the significant momentum behind our recovery plan overall.”

The entire sales process is expected to take 12-18 months to complete and Hester added that customers should not experience any changes in the meantime.