Bradford & Bingley chief Steven Crawshaw wants to increase the firm's presence on the high street - by using other companies' premises.

The bank's chief executive, who is in the middle of a £40 million cost-cutting exercise, said he believed it was more important than ever that the firm had a strong branch network.

And Mr Crawshaw told the Telegraph & Argus that one way the company was looking at increasing its presence was by having desks in offices of other financial organisations.

Bradford & Bingley already teams up with other firms in places such as Saltaire, where it shares premises with Cotson Reddish and Partners.

"We see the branch as right at the centre of our customer service offering," said Mr Crawshaw.

"Customers like other channels as well, but we think there is a very real future for the branches. There is a good possibility that we will look to tweak the number of branches up, including some use of alternative third party sites."

Mr Crawshaw was speaking after announcing Bradford & Bingley's latest set of half-yearly results which saw a rise in pre-tax profits to £140 million. He was upbeat about the company's future prospects.

Mr Crawshaw could not comment on speculation surrounding the bank's situation as a possible takeover target.

However, stockbroker Georgina Mitchell, of Redmayne-Bentley in Leeds, said the primary concern about the company was that it could follow Bradford-based finance firm Provident Financial out of the FTSE100 of leading listed companies.

It has been hovering around the 100 mark in the rankings for a few months.

"The company is really teetering on the brink at the moment and the share price hasn't been doing that well recently," said Mrs Mitchell.

"Rumours of various takeover bids in the banking sector have helped it, but it could find itself dropping out of the FTSE100 in early September."