Santander combines digital bank with consumer finance unit in Europe

Santander, a Spanish bank, announced on Wednesday that it would merge its digital lender Openbank into its consumer finance division in Europe to streamline its structure and cut costs.

Santander announced that the new entity would manage Santander’s consumer finance operations, under the Openbank name, beginning with Germany and other markets following.

Openbank and Santander Consumer Finance are part of the global digital consumer banking business. This business in Europe has 84 billion euro ($98 billion) of customer deposits.

SCF is the leader in auto financing in Europe, with more than 140 billion euro in loans.

STREAMLINING DIGITAL OPERATIONS

Santander will restructure its business in 2023 into Retail, Consumer, Payments, Wealth, Corporate and Investment Banking Units to increase efficiency and value.

The largest eurozone lender in terms of market value has not disclosed any potential savings that could be made from the merger.

Nitin Prabhu said that the merger would result in a "more innovative and efficient digital-first bank".

Santander is developing its own platform of technology for digital and consumer-only banking.

Openbank is currently active in Spain, Germany and Portugal, and has recently expanded into the U.S.

Openbank and SCF in recent years have formed partnerships with Apple, Amazon, and Vodafone across Europe.

Santander stated that the integration will allow clients to have access to a larger range of products via a digital platform.

(source: Reuters)