Santander clients who lost money to the alleged fraud by Bernard Madoff reacted with a mixture of scepticism on Wednesday and hostility to the Spanish bank’s offerof preference shares as partial repayment.

Santander, the eurozone’s largest bank, has reported that its clients lost €2.33bn ($3.09bn) in the alleged $50bn cheme. On Tuesday, it offered to pay back individual private banking clients all of the principal they had placed in two funds run by Optimal, Santander’s hedge fund arm, that were invested with Mr Madoff.