At the time of going to press, it is not known what Okey’s next move will be, but Santander has confirmed that he will relinquish his post on 31 March.
The departure follows other recent internal management changes at Santander UK.
In January, Nici Audhlam-Gardiner moved from her role as director of mortgages for Santander UK to take up a role as director of banking.
Later that month, Clive Kornitzer moved from his role as chief operating officer at AfI in January to take up a new role in the business to develop a proposition for affluent consumers.
António Lorenzo, executive director at Santander UK, said: “We thank Ricky Okey for the contribution he has made in making AfI one of the leading players in the intermediary space and for his part in ensuring the integration of Abbey and Alliance & Leicester’s intermediary teams has progressed well. We are sorry to see him leave and wish him well in his future career.”
Mathewson, currently director of the Bancassurance division, will take up the new role on May 1, subject to FSA approval.
He will also take over leadership of Santander Private Banking UK by replacing Alvaro Morales, who is moving to become chief executive officer of Santander Private Banking International.
David Sheppard, managing director of Perception Finance, said he thought the change will be positive as Mathewson will be heading up Santander Private Banking UK and AfI.
He added: “Hopefully this will mean the bank will offer both a normal AfI proposition and a Santander Private Banking proposition to intermediaries. However, I am concerned that the centralisation of Santander has become a bit fractured on the broker side, and I hope this will not continue.”
