NO redundancies are planned for financial workers when Santander rebrands Abbey, Alliance & Leicester (A&L) and Bradford & Bingley (B&B) – even in cases such as Darlington where two of the banks have branches next door to each other.

Santander yesterday said it would rebrand all three banks under its global moniker by the end of next year – axing British banking names which date back as far as 1851.

But a spokesman said staff in neighbouring branches, such as High Row in Darlington, should not worry about their futures, as the bank wanted to retain a 1,300 branch presence.

Last year 1,900 back room jobs went as part of Santander’s efforts to combine the acquired banks.

But the spokesman said: “They shouldn’t be worrying about their jobs. There are no plans to make frontline staff redundant.

“It is going to be a commonsense approach. In the vast majority of places we need two banks to serve our customers. There may be a situation where one bank becomes a money shop and mortgage place and the other transactional.

“If there is a situation where all three banks are next to each other, and not enough customers, we might move a bank to another town.

“Santander is a retail bank and in Spain might have six or seven retail banks in one town.”

Abbey and the B&B’s savings business, acquired by Santander in 2004 and 2008 respectively, will be the first to go, between January and March next year, with A&L following later in that year.

The group is now the UK’s second biggest mortgage lender and third largest savings bank following last year’s dramatic move to acquire the savings and branch operation of collapsed B&B in October, just a month after its rescue takeover of A&L.

The Government nationalised B&B’s £50bn loan book, which remains in State ownership and is unaffected by the Santander rebrand.