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 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, which could help fund up to $30 billion in loans for vehicle purchases and broaden its retail business in the country. It plans to add more products in the future.

"I was advised by many people, you should sell the bank in the U.S., it’s never going to make it. And I didn’t," she said.

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 and BNP Paribas.

It also has 409 branches mainly in nine states in the northeast.

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.

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

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."

(Reporting by Nupur Anand and Pete Schroeder; additional reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie Adler and Marguerita Choy)