This share prices have a 15 minute delay and are shown in the local time of the market in which the quote is displayed.
We aim to financially include 5 million more between 2023 and 2025*
*with access and finance initiatives, not including financial education
Financial inclusion and Financial health
We help people to access financial services, to create or develop microenterprises, and we provide them with the necessary skills to manage their finances through financial education which, together with specific services and products, have an impact.
Our strategy is designed to approach the specific needs of individuals and SMEs in Europe, Latin America and the United States in underbanked regions, difficulties to access credit and limited financial knowledge or in financial difficulties.
Our Responsible Banking, Sustainability and Culture Commission (RBSCC) oversights our responsible banking strategy and the Group’s sustainability matters, including the financial inclusion agenda and the objective associated with it.
We have processes in place for product and service development, training for our teams and collaboration with third parties to help us thrive on this agenda.
To meet this commitment, Banco Santander promotes financial inclusion through two main lines of action:
financially included people
financially included people
Our aim is to facilitate access to basic financial services.
On the one hand, we support access to the banking system and payment accounts. We help underbanked groups to join the banking system, giving them access to digital platforms to enable them to make payments, use basic financial services tailored to their needs, overcome barriers, take greater control over their finances, and enjoy faster and safer transactions.
We also seek to ensure access to financial services in sparsely populated, small, or remote areas, most of them with a large majority of elderly people, helping underbanked communities to become financially included. We operate branches and ATMs in remote, underserved and sparsely populated locations in Latin America and Europe; and we enter into agreements with private and public entities that expand our presence.
Our objective is to finance SMEs and entrepreneurs with difficulties in accessing credit through initiatives such as microfinance proposals to unbanked or underbanked populations in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Peru, as well as other initiatives that serve vulnerable communities in countries such as Argentina. We offer a wider range of products than just credit, such as bank cards, current accounts, deposits, and insurance. Outstanding examples of our programs are Prospera in Brazil and Colombia, Tuiio in Mexico, and Surgir in Peru.
We also seek to finance the basic needs of people on low incomes through a range of products and services including affordable housing programs and specific programs to alleviate financial stress, such as the deferral of mortgage payments. And we provide loans to help alleviate the financial difficulties of underserved individuals and SMEs, some of them with guaranteed schemes provided by both EU and national institutions.
In addition, our financial education programs help people acquire a range of competencies and skills to better manage their resources, increase, and protect their wealth through the appropriate use of financial products and services, which will result in greater financial health to cope with unforeseen events and achieve short, medium, and long-term financial goals.
Through our financial education programs, we promote financial knowledge, teaching how to use banking services effectively to generate greater confidence and security in their use, providing tools and knowledge that facilitate decision-making. Our programs cover a wide range of content and are aimed at different groups, using formats and tools that promote the accessibility of financial education and maximize the impact of our initiatives.
We apply the highest market standards to ensure transparent and responsible financial education through the development of the Financial Education Guide, which sets out:
- The Group's common principles for action in this area, aligned with the OECD principles.
- Criteria for the identification and ranking of initiatives according to:
- Content: basic concepts; better use of banking products and services; better management of personal finances; use of digital banking; responsible consumption and fraud prevention; entrepreneurship/advice for SMEs; sustainable finance; behavioral economics.
- Target audience: general public; children (up to 13 years old); young people (between 14 and 20 years old); university students; seniors (from 65 years old); unbanked people; SMEs and self-employed.
- The methodology for counting beneficiaries of financial education programs.
More information:
Main initiatives
Prospera
Created in 2002, Prospera is the largest microfinance programme offered by a private bank in Brazil. It’s a productive model aimed primarily at people without access to formal banking. In 2021, Santander Colombia and Santander Perú launched new microfinance programmes.
More details:
Tuiio
Launched in October 2017 in Mexico, Tuiio is a financial inclusion programme for low-income households. Its objective is to have a positive impact on communities by offering competitive microloans, especially to support and develop businesses.
More details:
