Abbey chiefs out with £1m pay-off

TWO more directors are leaving Abbey National as Spanish owner Banco Santander takes its first steps to restructure the High Street mortgage lender.

But it pledged to hang on to its life assurance operation which staff had feared would be sold.

Customer sales director Mark Pain and IT boss Yasmin Jetha will split a £1m pay-off on top of the £2.6m joint profit they made cashing in share options two weeks ago.

Jetha leaves next week after 19 years because new chief executive Francisco Gomez-Roldan is combining IT with other back-office activities into a manufacturing division. Customer operations director Tony Wyatt will be promoted to run it.

The aim is to speed up the £300m cost savings including 3,000 job cuts and £150m extra revenues already identified by Santander before the £9.5bn deal was completed earlier this month.

'Abbey has the potential to be one of the most efficient and profitable banks in the UK,' said Gomez-Roldan who took over 10 days ago.

Another new division - combining insurance and asset management and including the old Scottish Mutual and Scottish Provident businesses - 'signals the importance of these markets'.