The acquisition has created a very powerful franchise. Combined, the deposits acquired from ABN AMRO and Santander’s own represent 17.1% market share. In terms of profits, the new entity ranked first in Uruguay in the first half of 2008, accounting for 23.6% of the overall banking system’s profits, and more than 84% of the private banking sector’s profits.
Over the past year, Santander has launched a wide variety of innovative products and services, including the Multisave credit card, which enables holders to make savings at one of the biggest supermarket chains in the country. Another innovative service, Superpagos, targets large companies and their small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers. Through the service, Santander makes payments to the companies’ suppliers, avoiding funds management and reducing direct customer services at branches. Santander attracted 4000 supplier accounts, doubled the number of companies – the clients – who use the service, and increased monthly transaction volumes by 400% in 2007.
Jorge Jourdan, the head of Santander’s Uruguay business, says that the scale provided by the ABN acquisition has been critical.
“Following the acquisition of ABN AMRO’s businesses in Uruguay, Banco Santander has a leading market share of almost 18%. So far in 2008, we have increased our market share in deposits by 30 basis points and in lending by more than 100 basis points. We are Uruguay’s leading bank by profit, with more than 9m in net income in the first nine months of this year. The combined banks will have €2.27bn in assets and €2.85bn in funds under management.”
