MOVES-Santander Bank names former Goldman exec as US retail banking head

March 27 (Reuters) - Santander Bank on Wednesday named former Goldman Sachs executive Swati Bhatia as its new head of retail banking and transformation in the United States, effective immediately.

Bhatia most recently led Goldman's direct-to-consumer Marcus business and was previously the chief payments risk officer at privately held financial technology giant Stripe.

In the new role, she will report to Tim Wennes, Santander U.S. CEO and country head, and Daniel Barriuso, global head of the bank's retail and commercial banking and group transformation.

Bhatia, who has also worked in a leadership capacity at payments firm PayPal and U.S. lender Capital One , is expected to focus on building newer capabilities, simplifying existing processes and lowering costs at the consumer bank.

She stepped down from her role as head of Goldman's consumer unit early last year after the Wall Street bank signaled it was scaling back its ambitions for the loss-making consumer unit.

Santander Bank, N.A., with a combined $75 billion in deposits, $102 billion in assets and 1.8 million customers, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Spain's Banco Santander. (Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru and Lananh Nguyen in New York; Editing by Tasim Zahid)