Banco Santander Central Hispano has dismissed claims by Lane, Clark & Peacock, a UK consulting actuary, that it has a €9.4bn ($11.2bn) hole in its pensions obligations, one of the largest deficits in Europe.

The latest report from Lane, Clark & Peacock compares pension solvency among the companies of the Dow Jones Stoxx 50 index. It states that the Spanish banking group had pension liabilities of €9.996bn at the end of its 2003 financial year.