Spanish banking giant Banco Santander has unveiled plans to invest more than €20bn over the next four years in digital and technology to generate customer and revenue growth.
Image: Santander Investor Day 2019 at the QEII London. Photo: courtesy of Banco Santander S.A.
Santander said that it intends to increase customer loyalty by enhancing and personalizing customer experiences while expanding several of its digital products.
The bank plans to accelerate the development its ‘speedboat’ businesses, which will allow it to evaluate new solutions and seek new customers in the open market.
Santander is also looking to transition its IT infrastructure towards a multi-cloud environment while using agile methodologies to accelerate its overall business and technology transformation.
The bank will deploy machine learning and robotics at scale, while implementing re-engineering processes and negotiating provider contracts across the world to improve pricing.
Under the digital initiatives, the Spanish organization will launch its international payments solution, Santander One Pay FX, to non-customers. The solution will be made available through Pago FX, an independent open market app, which is expected to be launched in the UK, Poland and Germany for individuals and SMEs in the near future.
The banking group will expand its Brazilian subsidiary Getnet to create a global merchant services platform, initially in Mexico and expand to Latin America and Europe later.
Another digital initiative is to launch a global trade services platform, which will provide trade finance, foreign exchange, supply chain and payments for SMEs.
Santander has also confirmed plans to expand its full-service digital bank, Openbank, to 10 new international markets in the medium term, with a goal to reach two million customers.
The bank is targeting €1.2bn of incremental annual cost savings by improving its operational performance and capital allocation, and by leveraging opportunities for scale and efficiency.
Banco Santander executive chairman Ana Botín said: “Technology is changing banking as we know it and we are positioning the company to capitalise on the world class assets we have across the Group, including our technology, talent and scale. This will allow us to benefit from the opportunities presented by digital innovation and will result in us becoming a digital leader in global financial services for the next decade.
“Our digital and technology investments will enable us to improve the customer experience while also enhancing our growth and profitability.”