Banking group Santander is to increase its planned number of graduates in the UK to around 230 this year.

Santander adds that it is expanding its graduate recruitment to include areas such as corporate banking alongside existing graduate schemes which include finance, branch, telephone distribution, audit and HR.

Simon Lloyd, HR director at Santander, says: “The uplift in the number of graduates we are taking on demonstrates the strength of the Santander approach to banking.  We see our investment in graduates as an important step on the road to becoming the best commercial bank in the UK.”