Banco Santander launched its Openbank digital entity in the United States on Monday, with the aim of expanding Banco Santander’s retail and consumer business in the country. The entity has informed in a statement. The launch of the digital bank could help finance up to $30 billion in loans for car purchases, according to the firm’s CEO in the United States, Tim Wennes.
The third largest financial institution in the Eurozone by market value is one of the few European banks with a retail presence in the US market, after the departure of its rivals BBVA and BNP Paribas.
Santander has more than $45 billion in retail deposits in its network of 409 branches in the United States, especially in nine northeastern states, and more than $60 billion in auto-related loans. “We have over $30 billion in auto-related assets that are not bank-funded today, that are wholesale-funded,” Wennes said.
Financing through the wholesale market is more expensive than if the bank finances the assets directly, but Wennes did not say how much the bank could save by moving to cheaper financing.
The launch of Openbank, which is the largest digital bank in Europe with more than 18.5 billion euros in deposits, is part of Santander’s global strategy to become a digital bank with branches.
The bank will operate digitally, as in the rest of the geographies in which it is present, so it will be able to provide services to the entire country. Until now, Santander only provided service to individual customers in its network of branches, present in the northeast of the United States.
Through the Openbank brand, Santander will offer American customers high-yield savings products of 5.25% in their savings account, higher than that of Goldman Sachs GS.N’s Marcus digital bank, which gives 4.1 % in your online savings account, or up to 4.7% in the CIT Bank platinum savings account. The minimum deposit will be $500 and users will have to have a mobile device that allows facial or fingerprint recognition.
The American entities JPMorgan and Bank of America hold most of the country’s bank deposits.
The launch of Openbank in the United States is being carried out in parallel with that of Mexico. In this country, Santander plans to launch the bank in the fourth quarter of this year, so it has already enabled the possibility of signing up for a waiting list to become a customer.
#Santander #launches #digital #bank #Openbank #grow #consumer #credit #business
