Sard (pictured) will take up the role of managing director of home buying and ownership in the summer and will be responsible for leading the team. He will report to Les Matheson, chief executive of personal banking.
He replaces Ian McLaughlin, who left the role in May last year to join Bank of Ireland as chief executive.
Sard’s previous roles at Santander include, managing director of Santander for Intermediaries, and chief executive of Santander’s insurance services in the UK. He became the managing director of Abbey for Intermediaries in May 2011.
He also chaired the UK Finance mortgages product and service board from February 2018 to December 2018.
Brad Fordham will take up the role as interim head of mortgages from today.
A NatWest spokesperson said: “We are looking forward to Miguel Sard joining the home buying and ownership team in due course and welcome his expertise and experience in the sector.”
Santander head of retail and business banking Susan Allen said: “I would like to thank Miguel for all his efforts over the last sixteen years with the group, and the last nine years in mortgages.
“He has helped us to deliver a consistently strong performance in mortgage lending and he leaves with our very best wishes.”
Mortgage lending up
Sard’s departure follows the bank’s financial results revealing its highest net mortgage growth in a decade.
Gross mortgage lending came in at £31.3bn in 2018, up from £28.8bn in the previous year – £7bn of which came from first-time buyers, up from £4.8bn in 2018, Santander’s most recent full-year results showed.
Its home loan book jumped by £7.4bn in 2019, to £165.4bn from £158bn in 2018, and around 60 per cent of mortgages retained were refinanced online.
However, competitive mortgage pricing took a toll on its bottom line and overall profit before tax fell by 37 per cent year-on-year to £981m.
