Banco Santander, S.A., doing business as Santander Group (, , Spanish: ), is a Spanish multinational

financial services Financial services are the economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, accountancy companies, ...

company based in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

and Santander in

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

. Additionally, Santander maintains a presence in all global financial centres as the 16th-largest banking institution in the world. Although known for its European banking operations, it has extended operations across

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

, and more recently in continental Asia. It is considered a systemically important bank by

Financial Stability Board The Financial Stability Board (FSB) is an international body that monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system. It was established after the G20 London summit in April 2009 as a successor to the Financial Stability For ...

. Many subsidiaries, such as

Abbey National The Abbey National Building Society was formed in 1944 by the merger of the Abbey Road and the National building societies. It was the first building society in the United Kingdom to demutualise, doing so in July 1989. The bank expanded thro ...

, have been rebranded under the Santander name. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50

stock market index In finance, a stock index, or stock market index, is an index that measures a stock market, or a subset of the stock market, that helps investors compare current stock price levels with past prices to calculate market performance. Two of th ...

. In May 2016, Santander was ranked as 37th in the

Forbes Global 2000 The ''Forbes'' Global 2000 is an annual ranking of the top 2000 public companies in the world, published by ''Forbes'' magazine. "The Global 2000" annual ranking is assembled by ''Forbes'' using a weighted assessment of four metrics: sales, profit ...

list of the world's biggest public companies. Santander is Spain's largest bank. Banco Santander is chaired by Ana Patricia Botín-Sanz de Sautuola O'Shea, daughter and granddaughter of former chairmen Emilio Botin-Sanz de Sautuola y García de los Ríos and Emilio Botín-Sanz de Sautuola López, respectively.

History

Banco Santander was founded in 1857 as Banco de Santander. In 1999, it merged with

Banco Central Hispano Banco Central Hispano was a Spanish bank. In 1999 it was merged with Banco Santander Banco Santander, S.A., doing business as Santander Group (, , Spanish: ), is a Spanish multinational financial services company based in Madrid and Santander ...

, or BCH, which had in turn been formed through the 1991 merger of Banco Central and Banco Hispanoamericano. The combined bank, known as Banco Santander Central Hispano, or BSCH, was designed to be a "merger of equals", in which the top executives of the two pre-existing firms would share control of the merged entity. Soon after the merger former BCH executives accused Banco Santander chairman Emilio Botín Sanz de Sautuola, and García de los Ríos who succeeded him, of trying to push his own agenda and threatened to take legal action. This post-merger disagreement was resolved when BCH executives Jose Amusátegui and Angel Corcóstegui agreed to accept severance payments, retire and pass control to Botín, at an expense to shareholders of

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists o ...

183 million. The large termination payouts generated negative press, and Botín was eventually brought to trial on criminal charges of "misappropriation of funds" and "irresponsible management". However, in April 2005, the court cleared him of all charges, the €164 million retirement payments made to the two former executives having been found to be legal, "made as compensation for the services provided to the bank". Also that year, the anti-corruption division of the Spanish public prosecutor's office cleared Botín of all charges in a separate case, in which he was accused of

insider trading Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) based on material, nonpublic information about the company. In various countries, some kinds of trading based on insider informati ...

. In 2007, the bank officially changed the official name back to Banco Santander S.A. In 1996, Banco Santander acquired Grupo Financiero InverMexico. In 2000, Banco Santander Central Hispano acquired Grupo Financiero Serfin of

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

. On 26 July 2004, Banco Santander Central Hispano announced the acquisition of

plc. Following shareholders' approval at the EGM of Abbey (95 percent voted in favour, despite vocal opposition from most of those present) and Santander, the acquisition was formally approved by the courts and Abbey became part of the Santander Group on 12 November 2004. In June 2006, Banco Santander Central Hispano purchased almost 20% of Sovereign Bank and acquired the option to buy the bank (at the time, the market value was roughly US$40 per share) for one year beginning in the middle of 2008. In May 2007, Banco Santander Central Hispano announced that in conjunction with The Royal Bank of Scotland and Fortis it would make an offer for

ABN AMRO ABN or abn may refer to: Companies * ABN AMRO Group, a Dutch bank group * ABN AMRO, sometimes referred to as "ABN" in shorthand, is a Dutch state-owned bank * Algemene Bank Nederland, a now-defunct Dutch bank Radio, news and television organizati ...

. BSCH's share of the offer added up to 28% and the offer would have to be made up of a capital increase through a new share issue. Then in October 2007, the consortium outbid

Barclays Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services. Barclays traces ...

and acquired

. As part of the deal, Grupo Santander acquired ABN AMRO's subsidiary in Brazil, Banco Real, and its subsidiary in Italy,

Banca Antonveneta Banca Antonveneta S.p.A. was an Italian bank based in Padua, Italy. The bank was absorbed into Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena in 2013. In 2008, it was the 9th largest banking group in Italy in terms of customer loans and the 8th largest in term ...

. On 13 August 2007, Banco Santander Central Hispano changed its legal name to Banco Santander. In November that year, it sold

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A. (), known as BMPS or just MPS, is an Italian bank. Tracing its history to a mount of piety founded in 1472 () and established in its present form in 1624 (), it is the world's oldest or second oldest bank ...

, excluding a subsidiary Interbanca. In March 2008, Banco Santander sold Interbanca to

GE Commercial Finance GE Commercial Finance was a unit of GE Capital, (one of five major operating divisions of General Electric). Headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, United States, it plays a role in over 35 countries and had assets of over US$335 billion at year ...

, receiving in return

GE Money GE Capital is the financial services division of General Electric. The company currently only runs one division, GE Energy Financial Services. It had provided additional services in the past; however, those units were sold between 2013 and 2018 ...

businesses in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...

and

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, and GE's card and auto-financing businesses in the UK, which it integrated with Santander Consumer Finance. Santander headquarters, Madrid

In July 2008, the group announced it intended to purchase the UK bank Alliance & Leicester, which held £24 billion in deposits and had 254 branches. Santander also purchased the savings business of

Bradford & Bingley Bradford & Bingley plc was a British bank with headquarters in the West Yorkshire town of Bingley. The bank was formed in December 2000 by demutualisation of the Bradford & Bingley Building Society following a vote of the building society's mem ...

in September 2008, which held deposits of £22 billion, 2.6 million customers, 197 branches and 140 agencies. The acquisition of Alliance & Leicester completed in October 2008 when the B&B's shares were delisted from the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

. By the end of 2010 the two banks merged with Abbey National under the Santander UK brand. In October 2008, the Group announced to acquire 75.65% of Sovereign Bancorp it did not own for approximately US$1.9 billion (€1.4 billion). Because of the

2008 financial crisis 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of ...

at the time, Sovereign's

share price A share price is the price of a single share of a number of saleable equity shares of a company. In layman's terms, the stock price is the highest amount someone is willing to pay for the stock, or the lowest amount that it can be bought for. B ...

had fallen greatly: rather than the $40 per share it would have cost in 2006, Banco Santander ended up paying less than $3 per share. The acquisition of Sovereign gave Santander its first retail bank in the mainland United States. Santander renamed the bank to enhance its global brand recognition in October 2013. On 14 December 2008, it was revealed that the collapse of Bernard Madoff's

Ponzi scheme A Ponzi scheme (, ) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. Named after Italian businessman Charles Ponzi, the scheme leads victims to believe that profits are comin ...

might mean the loss of €2.33 billion at Banco Santander. On 10 November 2009,

HSBC HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tr ...

Finance Corporation announced its auto finance entities had reached an agreement with Santander Consumer USA Inc.(SC USA) to sell HSBC US auto loan servicing operations, US$1 billion in auto loan receivables for US$904 million in cash, and enter into a loan servicing agreement for the remainder of its liquidated US auto loan portfolio. The transaction closed in the first quarter of 2010. In September 2010, Santander purchased Bank Zachodni WBK from

Allied Irish Banks Allied Irish Banks, p.l.c. is one of the so-called Big Four (banking)#Ireland, Big Four commercial banks in Ireland. AIB offers a full range of personal, business and corporate banking services. The bank also offers a range of general insurance ...

. On 28 February 2012, Santander announced that it had reached an agreement with KBC Bank to buy KBC's subsidiary Kredyt Bank in Poland. Santander merged Bank Zachodni WBK and Kredyt to create Poland's third-biggest bank, valued at about €5 billion (US$6.7 billion), having a market share of 9.6% in deposits, 8.0% in loans, 12.9% in branches (899), and more than 3.5 million retail customers. As a result of the merger, Santander came to hold 76.5% of the combined bank, and KBC came to hold about 16.4%; other shareholders held about 7.1% of the shares in the combined bank. Santander stated that it intended to buy more of KBC's shares in the combined bank to bring KBC's holdings below 10%; KBC affirmed it intended to sell its remaining stake. KBC sold its shareholding and Santander owns 75% of the bank, the rest is free float. In December 2012, Banco Santander announced that it would absorb

Banesto Banco Español de Crédito, S.A. (), “Spanish Credit Bank”) better known as Banesto, was a Spanish multinational financial services company. Prior to the Spanish Government's historical intervention in 1993, the very first in the history of ...

and Banco BANIF, purchasing the remaining 10% of Banesto it did not already own. In October 2013, Santander acquired 51% in Spain's largest consumer finance business, El Corte Inglés, for around €140 million. Santander acquired a €470 million stake in

Bank of Shanghai Bank of Shanghai Co., Ltd. (BOSC) is an urban commercial bank based in Shanghai in China. The bank was ranked 73rd among 1000 banks around the world by ''The Banker'' in terms of their Tier 1 capital in 2020. History The Bank of Shanghai was fou ...

in 2013 in order to rebalance its business to the Asian market. In June 2014, Santander bought GE Money Bank, GE Capital's consumer finance business in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, for €700 million (US$950 million). In September 2014, it was announced that Santander was in talks to merge its asset management unit with that of Unicredit to create a European firm worth €350 billion in assets. In November 2014, Banco Santander acquired a 5.1 percent stake in Monitise Plc for £33 million. On 7 June 2017, Banco Santander purchased Banco Popular Español for a symbolic price of €1. In 2018, the bank announced a three-year push into

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived ...

to increase its presence in the market, particularly Brazil and Mexico, targeting these countries' super-rich.

Financial data

Operations

The Santander Group operates across Europe, South America, North America and Asia, partly due to its acquisitions. it had more than 186,000 employees, 14,392 branches, 3.26 million shareholders and 102 million customers.

Retail banking Retail banking, also known as consumer banking or personal banking, is the provision of services by a bank to the general public, rather than to companies, corporations or other banks, which are often described as wholesale banking. Banking serv ...

– the main aspect of Santander's operations – generates 74% of the group's profit. On 10 June 2010, Grupo Santander announced that it would invest approximately US$270 million (€200 million) in

Campinas Campinas (, ''Plains'' or ''Meadows'') is a Brazilian municipality in São Paulo State, part of the country's Southeast Region. According to the 2020 estimate, the city's population is 1,213,792, making it the fourteenth most populous Brazilian ...

, Brazil in a technology centre for research and data processing and a data centre that was to support operations across North America, Central America and South America. The new centre was to be established within the 'Development Company for High Technology Cluster of Campinas' on 1 million square metres. Construction began in January 2011, and full operation was expected in 2013 offering over 8,000 direct and indirect jobs. In 2013, global growth equity firm General Atlantic, along with

Warburg Pincus Warburg Pincus LLC is a global private equity firm, headquartered in New York, with offices in the United States, Europe, Brazil, China, Southeast Asia and India. Warburg has been a private equity investor since 1966. The firm currently has over ...

LLC, acquired a 50% stake in Santander Asset Management. In 2010, Banco Santander expanded into

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

, focusing on trade finance services and establishing a joint venture with

China Construction Bank China Construction Bank Corporation (CCB) is one of the " big four" banks in China. In 2015, CCB was the 2nd largest bank in the world by market capitalization and 6th largest company in the world. The bank has approximately 13,629 domestic branc ...

. The venture was set up in 2011 with initial funds of 3.5 billion yuan (US$530 million).

Europe

*Austria ** Santander Consumer Bank GmbH *Belgium ** Santander Consumer Finance Benelux B.V. *Denmark ** Santander Consumer Bank AS *Finland ** Santander Consumer Finance Oy *France ** Banco Santander, S.A. – Representative Office in Paris *Germany ** Santander Consumer Bank AG ** Santander Bank (Zweigniederlassung der Santander Consumer Bank AG) ** Santander Consumer Debit GmbH ** Santander Consumer Leasing GmbH *Italy ** Santander Consumer Bank S.p.A. ** Santander Private Banking *Luxembourg ** Banco Santander Totta S.A *Netherlands ** Santander Consumer Finance Benelux B.V. *Norway ** Santander Consumer Bank AS *Poland ** Santander Bank Polska ** Santander Consumer Bank S.A. *Portugal **

Banco Santander Totta Banco Santander Totta S.A., also known as Banco Santander (Portugal), is a subsidiary of Banco Santander in Portugal. Founded in 1988, it is currently the largest private bank in Portugal. In 2000, the then Banco Totta was acquired by Santander G ...

** Banco Popular Portugal ** Banco Santander Consumer Portugal, SA ** WiZink Portugal ** Hispamer *Spain ** Banco Santander ** Banco Popular Español **

Banco Pastor Banco Popular Pastor, S.A. was a Spanish bank. It was the second oldest banking institution in the country, after Banco Etcheverría. The bank's main business activity was commercial banking, corporate banking, Internet and telephone banking, a ...

** Santander Consumer Finance ** Openbank ** WiZink *Sweden ** Santander Consumer Bank AS *Switzerland ** Santander Private Banking *United Kingdom ** Santander UK **

Cahoot cahoot is an internet-only division of Santander UK plc, the British subsidiary of the Santander Group. Cahoot was launched in June 2000, as the internet based banking brand of Abbey National plc. Cahoot is based in Belfast, Northern Ireland ...

** Cater Allen **Santander International *** Isle of Man branch *** Jersey branch ** Santander Consumer (UK) plc ** Santander Totta

Americas

*Argentina ** Banco Santander Río *Brazil ** Banco Santander Brasil *Chile ** Banco Santander-Chile ** Banco Santander Banefe *Colombia ** Banco Santander de Negocios Colombia S.A. *Mexico ** Santander México *Peru ** Banco Santander Perú S.A. *Puerto Rico ** Banco Santander Puerto Rico ** Santander Overseas Bank *United States ** Santander Private Banking **

Santander Bank Santander Bank, N. A. (), formerly Sovereign Bank, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Spanish Santander Group. It is based in Boston and its principal market is the northeastern United States. It has $57.5 billion in deposits, operates abo ...

** Santander Consumer USA ** Santander Global Banking & Markets ** RoadLoans ** HelpingLoans ** TotalBank (

Miami Dade Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Florida and the seventh-most populous county i ...

) *Uruguay ** Banco Santander Uruguay

Asia and Australia

*China ** Banco Santander, S.A. – Shanghai branch ** Banco Santander, S.A. – Beijing branch *Hong Kong ** Banco Santander, S.A. – Hong Kong branch *Singapore ** Banco Santander, S.A. – Singapore branch

Africa

* Attijariwafa Bank (4.55% share)

Sponsorships

Santander and

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known simply as Primera División in Spain, and as La Liga in English-speaking countries and officially as LaLiga Banco Santander, Santander for sponsorship reasons, stylized as LaL ...

had a title sponsorship deal from the 2016–17 season, forming the Spanish football league known commercially as La Liga Santander. Santander sponsored the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

for two years, from the 2018–19 season to 2020–21. Santander has also sponsored the main South American club competition

Copa Libertadores The CONMEBOL Libertadores, also known as the Copa Libertadores de América ( pt, Copa Libertadores da América), is an annual international club football competition organized by CONMEBOL since 1960. It is the highest level of competition in S ...

since

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

for the South American markets. In

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

, from 2007 to 2017, Santander was a corporate sponsor of the

Ferrari Ferrari S.p.A. (; ) is an Italian luxury sports car manufacturer based in Maranello, Italy. Founded by Enzo Ferrari (1898–1988) in 1939 from the Alfa Romeo racing division as ''Auto Avio Costruzioni'', the company built its first car in ...

and

McLaren McLaren Racing Limited is a British motor racing team based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey, England. McLaren is best known as a Formula One constructor, the second oldest active team, and the second most successful Formu ...

teams. From 2022, Santander returned to Formula One as a premium sponsor of Ferrari. In March 2020 Santander Group in conjunction with La Liga announced the first ever LaligaSantander Fest, a global charity concert event seeking to raise funds in response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

.Lang, J.
"Intl TV Newswire: LaLiga Fest Details, Dancing Ledge Promotes, Red Arrow Deals"
'' Variety'', March 27, 2020.

Citations

References

*Guillén, Mauro and Adrian Tschoegl (2008
''Building a Global Bank: The Transformation of Banco Santander''
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). {{DEFAULTSORT:Banco Santander Banks of Spain Conglomerate companies of Spain Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Multinational companies headquartered in Spain Systemically important financial institutions Companies based in Cantabria Santander, Spain Banks established in 1857 1857 establishments in Spain Spanish brands IBEX 35 Companies in the Euro Stoxx 50 Companies listed on the Madrid Stock Exchange Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange Companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange Banks under direct supervision of the European Central Bank