In an effort to boost the socioeconomic diversity of its recruits, Spanish bank Santander is to become the first major bank in Britain to drop its requirement for graduate recruits to achieve at least a 2.1 degree and will hence force look at hiring graduates with a third class degree. 

The Spanish lender - which has a large network of branches in the UK - offers a graduate programme which gives the new joiners experience across many of the bank’s business areas including audit, commercial banking, everyday banking and risk departments.

Although the programme will only take 68 recruits this September, the bank believes the change will lead to an extra 64,000 more applicants being eligible, as around 16% of students who leave university graduate with a 2:2 or a third class degree.

Successful applicants will receive career coaching and mentoring from senior leaders and at the of the two to three year programme will be offered a permanent role.

Santander’s HR director, Anouska Ramsay, said:

“Academic achievement is important, but it is only one of many factors we look at when searching for new talent,”.

She added:

“We believe potential can be found anywhere and this move reinforces our commitment to finding the best candidates from a wide range of backgrounds.”

The decision to drop minimum hiring requirements was also scrapped last year by accountancy firm PwC and asset manager Schroders, although Santander are the first UK bank to implement the policy and forms part of their efforts to boost the proportion of employees from lower socioeconomic backgrounds in senior roles from 28% to 35% by 2030.