Santander’s profits fell 40% last year after the bank forked out £538million to refund customers mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance (PPI).

Without the Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) bill,UKprofits were down 6% to £1.5billion due to higher costs and “intense” competition.

The firm’s boss Ana Botin hailed a 25% rise in small business lending to £10.7billion. The bank also held its share of new mortgage lending but saw net lending, which takes into account repayments and people switching, plunge 80% to £1.1bn.

Santanderbenefited from a 38% fall in bad debts to £508m, much of it due to a decision to only give unsecured loans to existing current account customers. The bank opened 836,000 current accounts in the year and issued 543,000 more credit cards, up 25%.

This included 145,000 new 123 Cashback Credit Cards which pay 1% for money spent in supermarkets, 2% in department stores and 3% on petrol. Profits at the group’s Spanish owners dived 98% after it slashed the value of property investments there and in Portugal.

Sally Bowyer, Managing Director of leading claims firm, BrunelFranklin.com said: “So few people know that they were ever sold PPI that some commentators believe there may be 30-35 million policies in existence, the majority of which could have been mis-sold. If you have genuinely been mis-sold a policy, you should be looking to get back your full premium plus interest, by way of fair redress.”

Learn more about PPI refunds and find out if you could apply for a refund today! Visit the website www.brunelfranklin.com or call Brunel Franklin, free, on 0800 051 54 51