Banco Santander has been named Bank of the Year in Western Europe, the Americas, Spain, Portugal, Argentina and Chile by The Banker magazine. The Banker recognized the bank’s “peerless commitment to an enhanced customer experience”, its pursuit of operational efficiency and its development of new digital, global trade and global merchant services.
In addition, it commended Santander on its ability to deliver strong financial results “despite often challenging macroeconomic conditions” and on the successful integration of Banco Popular.
José Antonio Álvarez, CEO of Santander Group, said: “We are delighted to be recognised as the best bank in Western Europe and in the Americas. It has been a strong year in which we have continued to grow our customer base and strengthen our business, despite some significant external headwinds. This reflects the strength of our model and strategy, and the quality of our people.”
The CEO of Santander España, Rami Aboukhair, said: “We have successfully completed the integration of Banco Popular. This acquisition gives us a competitive position to continue to enhance synergies in costs and revenues, while acting as a responsible bank, and grow our offer of products and services for our customers, supported by digitalisation”.
Banco Santander has a meaningful presence in 10 core markets in Europe and the Americas, and is the largest bank in the euro zone by market capitalization.
In the first nine months of 2019, Banco Santander made underlying profit of € 6,180 million, an increase of 2% compared to the same period the previous year.
Furthermore, Banco Santander had €1.04 trillion in customer funds, 144 million customers, of which 21 million are loyal and 36.2 million are digital (51% of active customers), 12,700 branches and 200,000 employees.
