The magazine also awarded Santander Bank of the Year in Spain, Portugal, Argentina and Chile.

The Banker underscored Santander’s “peerless commitment to an enhanced customer experience”, its introduction of new products and services and its ability to consistently deliver strong results.

Madrid, 29 November 2019 - PRESS RELEASE
Banco Santander has been named Bank of the Year in Western Europe, the Americas, Spain, Portugal, Argentina and Chile by The Banker magazine. The Banker recognized the bank’s “peerless commitment to an enhanced customer experience”, its pursuit of operational efficiency and its development of new digital, global trade and global merchant services.

In addition, it commended Santander on its ability to deliver strong financial results “despite often challenging macroeconomic conditions” and on the successful integration of Banco Popular.

José Antonio Álvarez, CEO of Santander Group, said: “We are delighted to be recognised as the best bank in Western Europe and in the Americas. It has been a strong year in which we have continued to grow our customer base and strengthen our business, despite some significant external headwinds. This reflects the strength of our model and strategy, and the quality of our people.”

^{Banco Santander (SAN SM, STD US, BNC LN) is a leading retail and commercial bank, founded in 1857 and headquartered in Spain. It has a meaningful presence in 10 core markets in Europe and the Americas, and is the largest bank in the euro zone by market capitalization. Its purpose is to help people and businesses prosper in a simple, personal and fair way. Santander is building a more responsible bank and has made a number of commitments to support this objective, including raising over €120 billion in green financing between 2019 and 2025, as well as financially empowering more than 10 million people over the same period. At the end of September 2019, Banco Santander had EUR 1.04 trillion in customer funds, 144 million customers, of which 21 million are loyal and 36.2 million are digital (51% of active customers), 12,700 branches and 200,000 employees. Banco Santander made underlying profit of EUR 6,180 million in the first nine months of 2019, an increase of 2% compared to the same period the previous year.}