Atkins admitted that some of the club’s members might be wary of its new owners but chose to focus on the growth of the organisation over the last twelve months, saying it had made the right decision not to offer network-style offerings to appointed representatives (ARs).
He said the club now had around 4,000 member firms and eight appointed packagers.
Addressing the audience Atkins said: “The main thing to get across is that the acquisition of Abbey by Banco Santander will not affect your operations with us.”
Commenting on the development Rob Clifford, managing director of Mortgageforce, said: “With a very well-established international company like Banco Santander taking over a company, it is almost inevitable that there will be change.
“I doubt very much whether any of Abbey’s subsidiary companies would know very much about the true intentions of the new parent.”
Ambrose McGinn, director of Abbey for Intermediaries, said in a statement earlier this year: “On the insurance side, Banco Santander believes it can significantly increase the penetration of general insurance and protection products by more effectively selling to Abbey’s mortgage customer base.
“In addition, Banco Santander plans to improve the sale of insurance-based investments and pensions.”
