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 ( PYPL ) 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.