Reportedly, the staff at Glasgow, Leicester and Liverpool will now handle all the calls that have been diverted to India since 2003.

The estimated 1.5 million calls per month will be handled to newly recruited 500 extra staff in UK.

Abbey National, which was acquired by Santander, outsourced its call center operations in 2003 to India – in Bangalore and Pune, Mumbai.

Santander UK chief executive Ana Botin said improving the service the bank offers is the top priority.

"Our customers tell us they prefer our call centres to be in the UK and not offshore. We have listened to the feedback and have acted by re-establishing our call centres back here, Botin said.