Santander Bank saved 50 million euros ($53.6 million) in the first quarter as the bank leaned into its tech investments for added efficiency.
“Our proprietary and unique global technology capabilities have already generated 63 basis points in efficiency savings so far [this year],” Santander Chief Executive Hector Grisi said today during the Madrid-based bank’s Q1 earnings call.
During the quarter, the bank’s savings attributed to technology contributed to $253.9 million in savings at the bank since 2022, Grisi said.
The savings is attributed to the following:
- New global agreements with vendors, like Google, and process optimization; and
- Implementation of new IT and operations shared services.
The bank is investing in AI to boost operational efficiency, a spokesperson at the $1.9 trillion bank previously told Bank Automation News. Santander has identified more than 60 use cases for AI in virtual agents, information retrieval, software development and content generation.
BIGGER PICTURE: Santander joins $2.6 trillion BNP Paribas and $578 billion Deutsche Bank in its efforts to reduce costs through technology.
BNP is benefiting from its investments in AI and the cloud to optimize processes while Deutsche Bank is seeing savings from infrastructure upgrades and platform optimization, the banks reported April 29 during their earnings calls.
BY THE NUMBERS: Santander reported in Q1:
- Information technology spend increased 0.5% year over year to $691 million;
- Headcount increased 0.5% YoY to 211,141; and
- Branch count fell 6.5% YoY to 8,405.
NOTEWORTHY: The bank will launch its digital offering, Openbank, in the United States in the second half of the year, it announced in a release on April 9.
Openbank, which already serves more than 2 million customers in Europe, will offer U.S. clients access to digital banking capabilities through the cloud-based banking platform, the release stated. In Europe, the digital bank has $19.3 billion in deposits and it expects to boost its growth strategy in the U.S. when it rolls out the platform.
Editor’s note: All amounts have been converted to U.S. dollars.
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