Through Santander X, the bank provides free training, benefits and discounts, as well as other resources that businesses need to scale and grow.

Santander has over 4.3 million SME customers in the markets where it operates.

Madrid, 14 April 2025.
Banco Santander bolstered its support to startups, scaleups, entrepreneurs and SMEs in 2024 through its non-financial proposition. Last year alone, its global Santander X initiative helped 52,570 businesses and entrepreneurial projects in 11 countries.

This figure reaffirms the bank’s commitment to economic growth and business development in the markets where it operates, with a wide range of non-financial resources — free training, benefits and discounts on technology products, as well as advisory services, awards and others — that help companies create opportunities, grow and transform.

These resources add to Santander’s financial proposition, which helps over 4.3 million SME customers. In 2024, the bank disbursed EUR 330 billion in financing to create or grow businesses, including over 530,000 SMEs and sole traders.

"Our aim is to spur entrepreneurs’ and businesses’ transformation and growth throughout their life cycle, with a value proposition that offers them the best resources free of charge, whether they’re a customer of the bank or not, and through which we’re able to provide more robust, sustainable and competitive support for their development", said Antonio Suárez-Pumariega, Global Head of Digital Businesses at Santander Universities.

Challenges and awards

Last year, the bank ran three global challenges for startups and scaleups to uncover the most innovative solutions to issues related to education, employability, entrepreneurship, healthcare and customer experience. On top of this, it also hosted numerous awards ceremonies to recognize the best entrepreneurial projects, startups, scaleups and businesses for their solutions in several sectors and the positive impact they generate.

In 2024, Santander gave out prize money of over EUR 750,000 to the winners of its global challenges, the Santander X Global Award, and in-country contests. In addition to all these non-financial benefits, the Santander X 100 global community brings together Santander X’s most successful companies and provides them with international visibility and networking, as well as access to exclusive services and discounts.

Santander and its support for education, employability and entrepreneurship

Banco Santander has been a pioneering stalwart of education, employability and entrepreneurship for almost 30 years, standing out among the world's financial institutions. Santander has deployed over EUR 2.4 billion to these areas and given scholarships and grants to more than 3.7 million people and businesses through agreements with nearly 1,200 universities (www.santander.com/universidades).