Santander makes 'mystery' £232m provision The provision was one of several made by Santander that included setting aside £335m against new writedowns on its toxic assets and £52m following its recent withdrawal from the proposed acquisition of 316 branches from Royal Bank of Scotland. The one-off costs muted a £705m gain made by the bank from the buy back of its own bonds. Ana Botin, chief executive of Santander UK, said she was "pleased" by the results and that the decision to withdraw from the RBS acquisition was due to it not being "in the best interests of customers or staff." Gross mortgage lending by Santander UK shrank from £16.8bn in the first nine months of last year to £11.5bn, leading to a decline in the lender's share of the mortgage market by 5.5 percentage points to 10.8pc. The bank's SME lending increased, with total outstanding loans rising from £8.5bn to £10.2m. Ms Botin has focused Santander UK's growth strategy on becoming the "bank of choice" for small businesses across Britain.