This business brings together our retail (individuals) and commercial (SMEs and large corporates) operations under one roof. Using technology built in-house, its aim is to enhance customer service, boost efficiency and promote value creation.

In September 2023, we announced the creation of a new global business, Retail & Commercial Banking, as the latest step on our journey towards ONE Santander. Our Retail arm accounts for 51% of the Group’s profits.

Santander is making headway with the implementation of a common operating model and technology in all our markets to boost digitalization and simplify our products and services.

Our global platform, built on our own back-end (Gravity) and cloud front-end (ODS) technology, is vital to transforming the retail business. In 2023, we made our end-to-end account opening (onboarding) process fully digital in Mexico.

The fruits of our labour, not to mention a year-on-year rise of 12% in revenue in 2023, have helped us increase efficiency by two percentage points. In 2023, Retail & Commercial Banking achieved an efficiency ratio of 43.1%.

As a result, its profits climbed 12% to EUR 5.569 billion. By grouping our retail and commercial operations, we have reduced our product portfolio by over 16%, simplified our proposition and enhanced customer experience.

Against this backdrop, the strategy for 2024 is to increase profitability by attracting new customers and reducing our cost of service. This is one way we are laying the foundations to become a digital bank with branches.