Santander launches digital bank in US to gain cheaper funding for auto loans
By Jesús Aguado and Saeed Azhar
MADRID/NEW YORK, Oct 21 (Reuters) -Spain's Santander SAN.MC launched its digital bank 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 country, U.S. CEO Tim Wennes told Reuters.
The euro zone's third-biggest lender by market value is one of the few European banks with a retail presence in the U.S. market following the exit of rivals BBVA BBVA.MC and BNP Paribas BNPP.PA.
Santander has over $45 billion in retail deposits at its 409-strong U.S. branch network, mainly in nine states in the northeast, and over $60 billion in autolending assets.
"We have north of $30 billion of auto assets that are not funded by the bank today, that are wholesale funded," Wennes told Reuters in an online interview late on Friday.
Funding via the wholesale market is more expensive than if the bank funds the assets directly, but Wennes did not say how much the bank would save by moving to the cheaper funding structure.
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 to become a digital bank with branches.
To try and gain market share in deposits in the U.S., Santander is initially offering a yield of 5.25% on its savings account, higher than Goldman Sachs' GS.N digital bank Marcus which gives 4.1% on its online savings account or the up to 4.7% from CIT Bank's platinum savings account.
U.S. banks such as JPMorgan JPM.N and Bank of America BAC.N hold the largest share of bank deposits in the country.
A successful launch of a fully digital offering in the U.S., where Santander has 4.5 million total customers, will be crucial because the bank's U.S. business has been generating subpar returns.
Hiring expenses and higher provisions resulted in a 0.4% year-on-year fall in net profit in the U.S. in the first half.
Wennes said the bank would analyse how to best grow this digital platform and "certainly evaluate if partnership opportunities would make sense".
He also said that Santander was "comfortable today" with current resources deployed at its corporate investment bank in the U.S. following its recent expansion after hiring former executives from the collapsed Credit Suisse.
Reporting by Jesús Aguado; Editing by Susan Fenton
免责声明: XM Group仅提供在线交易平台的执行服务和访问权限，并允许个人查看和/或使用网站或网站所提供的内容，但无意进行任何更改或扩展，也不会更改或扩展其服务和访问权限。所有访问和使用权限，将受下列条款与条例约束：(i) 条款与条例；(ii) 风险提示；以及(iii) 完整免责声明。请注意，网站所提供的所有讯息，仅限一般资讯用途。此外，XM所有在线交易平台的内容并不构成，也不能被用于任何未经授权的金融市场交易邀约和/或邀请。金融市场交易对于您的投资资本含有重大风险。
所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。
本网站上由XM和第三方供应商所提供的所有内容，包括意见、新闻、研究、分析、价格、其他资讯和第三方网站链接，皆保持不变，并作为一般市场评论所提供，而非投资性建议。所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为适用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。请确保您已阅读并完全理解，XM非独立投资研究提示和风险提示相关资讯，更多详情请点击 这里。
