According to Euromoney magazine, our ability to provide small and medium-sized enterprises with what they need most makes us the World’s Best Bank for SMEs in 2020, a distinction also given to us in 2016 and 2017. This is how our bank helps SMEs. 
 

Santander believes SMEs are a key driver of economic growth and makes supporting them a top priority. We work with more than four million SMEs worldwide, helping them prosper with access to credit and other resources. Between June 2019 and June 2020, our lending to SMEs and companies grew 11%. 

We also support SMEs with digitalisation. Our Santander Global Platform is another step we’ve taken to provide SMEs with more agile, quality digital banking, together with our Santander Global Trade Platform Solutions. In April 2020, we also completed our investment in Ebury, a top payment and currency platforms for SMEs. We also have a majority stake in Mercury TFS, a company specialised in comprehensive software that automates trade finance management for corporate customers.
 

Support to SMEs in our geographies

Our proposition for small and medium-sized enterprises adapts to each of our markets. In Spain, we launched Financia&Go, the first fully-digital factoring service for SMEs and the self-employed. We are also developing Santander Personal, and we have Tresmares Capital, an independent alternative financing platform for small and medium-sized enterprises. 

Santander has adopted measures to help SMEs cope with the situation caused by the coronavirus. We approved €1.6 billion per day in loans worldwide in April, May and June, particularly to SMEs in Spain. We have supported more than six million customers worldwide (including companies and individuals) with such initiatives as payment holidays. In Portugal, we are leaders in extending credit facilities to SMEs and have launched an SME liquidity facility of €4 billion. In Poland, we have allowed our SME customers to suspend payments on loan principals. In Brazil, we launched Prospera, Agronegócio and, in particular, Duo Santander, which is specifically for small and medium-sized enterprises. In Chile, we are top lenders to SMEs and, in Mexico, we are on our way to becoming one of the three main players in corporate and investment banking. We also serve more than 301,000 SMEs in Argentina.

Santander supports SMEs because working together to strengthen our economy and job creation is the best way we can progress as a society.