Ana Botín, 53, was confirmed as the new chairwoman of Santander after the death on Tuesday of her 79-year-old father, the Spanish bank’s boss, Emilio Botín. Ana Botín was confirmed yesterday as the chairwoman of Santander after a hastily convened meeting of the Spanish bank’s board.

Ana Botín is regarded as a safe pair of handsHer appointment follows the death late on Tuesday of her father and the lender’s long-time boss, Emilio Botín.

Ms Botín, 53, stepped down as chief executive of Santander UK with immediate effect to take up the reins as head of the eurozone’s largest bank, with responsibility for 200,000 staff and operations spanning much of Europe and South America.

The swift coronation of Ms Botín, who had been widely tipped as the most likely successor to her father, came less than 24 hours after the 79-year-old had died of a heart attack.

Shares in Santander dipped by more than 2 per cent in London after the bank announced Mr Botín’s death yesterday, but they rallied to close down 5p at 614p.

In tributes, Mr Botín, known among staff as “the Don”, was hailed as the finest banker of his generation and the man who had transformed Santander from a relatively obscure regional Spanish bank into one of the world’s largest financial groups.

Regarded by the market as a “safe pair of hands”, Ms Botín becomes the fourth generation of her family to lead the bank.

Her elevation, though unsurprising, was not without controversy, however. “Succession shouldn’t just be saying: ‘My daughter’s going to take over,’ ” said one fund manager with shares in Santander, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Robert Tornabell, a banking professor at the ESADE business school in Barcelona, said that Ms Botín was “well prepared” for the role, having joined the family business in the early 1990s — and despite a three-year hiatus between 1999 and 2003, after her father had asked her to leave amid internal ructions over her seemingly inevitable rise, which appeared to have threatened her succession.

Her departure from the UK, where she had been since taking over the running of the bank in late 2010, leaves Nathan Bostock, her deputy, as the likely new chief executive of Santander UK. Terry Burns, the chairman of Santander UK, said that its board would meet next week to select a new chief and confirmed that Mr Bostock would lead it through a “transition phase”.

Santander UK was created from the merger of three building societies, after the Spanish bank entered the British market ten years ago with the £9 billion takeover of Abbey National. This was followed in 2008 with the acquisition at the height of the financial crisis of Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley.

The bank is gearing up for a long-delayed stock market listing that could value the business at about £10 billion.

António Horta-Osório, the chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group and the man once groomed by Mr Botín as a potential successor until his defection four years ago from Santander UK to the taxpayer-backed lender, hailed his former boss as a “great mentor … Emilio was a unique banker, the best of his generation.”

Andrea Orcel, chief executive of the investment banking division of UBS and a long-time adviser to Mr Botín during the acquisitions that turned Santander into a global banking powerhouse, described the late Spanish financier as an “inspiration”. “We have lost one of the most important global banking leaders in a generation,” he said.