Bird & Bird, Wragge & Co and Taylor Wessing are among five firms to have been added to Santander's own-account panel in the UK following a three-month competitive tender process.

Santander turned to online procurement company Aquanima to handle the first review of its merged UK panel since 2009, which covers the legacy Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley brands.

Other firms to garner first-time appointments include DMH Stallard and US firm Reed Smith. The new panel has been expanded to accommodate Santander's corporate banking business.

In addition, the majority of the 16 firms appointed in 2009 have been retained, including Slaughter and May, Hogan Lovells, Ashurst, Nabarro and Berwin Leighton Paisner.

The review also covered sub-panels including commercial, employment, pensions, corporate, regulatory, capital markets, litigation, financial services and asset lending, with the 21 firms set to be notified at the end of this week about which sub-panels they have been retained on.

A spokesperson for the bank said: "There has been great interest in Santander's UK panel arrangements and competition for a place on the panel has been unprecedented. This has resulted in a slightly larger panel than in previous years to cover the increased depth and breadth of Santander's requirements."

He added: "There have certainly been some movers and shakers and, in addition to focusing on quality and cost, Santander has been looking to deepen relationships with firms who also have a business relationship with Santander."

The bank also operates a third-party panel for work where most of the fees are passed to the bank's clients. This was reviewed before Christmas and resulted in eight law firm appointments, which Santander would not confirm.

Taylor Wessing banking partner Jonathan Marks commented: "The panel appointment brings us a wider spectrum of work and is the result of looking to build on our substantial relationship with Santander on the transactional side into the other parts of this growing institution."

News of Santander's new panel comes a week after Barclays appointed US firms Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, Shearman & Sterling and Sullivan & Cromwell to its general advisory panel.

Related: