Santander will have a full-service digital bank in US by end-2025, chair says

By Nupur Anand and Pete Schroeder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Spanish lender Santander (BME:SAN) will have a full-service digital bank in the United States by the end of 2025, its executive chair, Ana Botin, said on Thursday.

She made the comments during the Institute of International Finance conference in Washington.

Santander formally launched its digital bank, offering high-yield savings accounts in the United States on Monday, which will help it to fund over $30 billion of auto lending assets and broaden its retail business in the U.S. It plans to add more products in the future.

A digital bank has all its services on a single website and app.

The launch of Openbank, which is currently Europe’s largest digital bank with over 18.5 billion euros in deposits, is part of Santander’s global strategy for retail expansion.

Botin said she expects a pick-up of investment after the U.S. elections on Nov. 5.

“My sense in the U.S., not so much in Europe, is that a lot of the corporates are waiting to see what happens with the election,” she said.

Santander is the fifth-biggest auto lender in the United States and is expecting a pick-up in consumer demand, she said.

“The good news is that it seems to be a soft landing, maybe less soft than we thought last year, but there is some kind of a slow recovery,” she said of the U.S. economy.

“If you asked any of us two years ago, we are in a better place.”