Weekend read: Santander, HSBC tell two tales about the UK’s property market
Santander Bank
Santander UK would now have a word about those Vickers reforms
LONDON | Chancellor of the British Treasury George Osborne confirmed Monday afternoon what Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, had announce the day before on BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: that the Vickers report will be forced on to all banking institutions in the United Kingdom. “Our big banks were at the very centre of the financial crisis, what the Europeans call Anglo-Saxon financial capitalism. It needs reform.” The next weeks will be…
Santander Consumer Finance signs joint venture with Chinese JAC
Santander Consumer Finance has signed in Hefei, Anhui Province, an agreement with Chinese car manufacturer Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Co., Ltd (JAC) to create an independent company to provide auto financing in the Chinese market. Under the accord, Santander Consumer Finance and JAC will each have a 50% stake in the new company and will each name three members to the board of directors. The consumer finance unit of Banco Santander…
Santander’s Colombia unit sale: 0.5% of diversified profits for €615mn
Emilio Botín, the first banker to open a branch in a ‘favela’
In the last seven years in Brazil, 46 millions of poor people have become middle class and it is expected that 19 millions more can also improve their purchasing power by 2014. Banco Santander is the third private bank in Brazil, following Itaú and Bradesco, and the first opening a branch in a ‘favela’, Alemao, the most dangerous in Rio de Janerio. The daily Expansión had the scoop: “The opening…
German savings banks show Santander their true colours
Three years after Germany’s savings banks association DSGV sought a court injunction against Banco Santander using the colour red in its almost 350 branches in the country, the battle goes on. The German newspaper Die Welt reported on Tuesday that DSGV has set up a deadline through a lower court for the Spanish entity to change its image or face a fine. According to Die Welt, “recent surveys confirm that…
Santander’s chairman Emilio Botín: no to indiscriminate recapitalisation
We suspected that our readers might be interested in some of the remarks that Mr Botín made today during the IV International Banking Conference in Boadilla del Monte, so here you are a few highlights to discuss. On economic cycles: “This crisis reminds us of a number of things: cycles are not a thing of the past, liquidity is not always abundant and cheap and at times it can even disappear, financial…
Santander's chairman Emilio Botín: no to indiscriminate recapitalisation
We suspected that our readers might be interested in some of the remarks that Mr Botín made today during the IV International Banking Conference in Boadilla del Monte, so here you are a few highlights to discuss. On economic cycles: “This crisis reminds us of a number of things: cycles are not a thing of the past, liquidity is not always abundant and cheap and at times it can even disappear, financial…
Bond markets are (sort of) open to peripheral issuers
Iberdrola and Telecom Italia were on Thursday able to issue debt in the primary market, in bonds for a total amount of €600mn at four years and €750mn at five years, respectively. According to analysts at Banco Santander “issuers took advantage of a perhaps passing opportunity to place debt, long before the critical dates of the European Counci
Agencies trust Botín more than Spain
From Spain's best-seller newspaper El País | The rating agencies consider Banco Santander's solvency stronger than that of the Spanish state. Until now, the ratings given by credit agencies were slightly higher for the debt issued by the Kingdom of Spain than for the bonds issued by the bank that Emilio Botín presides. But the two step downgrade announced on Monday by Fitch, the third largest agency, tilts the balance…