Openbank and Santander Consumer Finance announced that they will integrate in Europe, expanding their range of products and services to customers. Banco Santander (NYSE: SAN) noted that it will merge Openbank and Santander Consumer Finance (SCF) into a single legal entity and will gradually operate its European consumer finance businesses under the Openbank brand.
Germany will reportedly be the first market to initiate integration, with other markets expected to follow.
Openbank and SCF are part of Santander’s Digital Consumer Bank (DCB) global business. The integration of these European businesses is described as being a next step in simplifying the business, enhancing customer offering, and helping the group ensure that it provides the “best service” and financing solutions for partners, like auto manufacturers, dealers or merchants, and their common end customers, improving its overall ability to offer competitive solutions.
Openbank is Santander’s “flagship” brand for digital-first consumer banking, embodying the freshness of its technology. By bringing together intuitive design and product innovation, it has reportedly achieved one of the highest net promoter scores (NPS) in its largest market.
Openbank will now carry the endorsement “by Santander,” which conveys the strength, stability of being part of a banking platform.
Openbank operates in four European nations (Spain, Germany, Portugal and the Netherlands) and has already launched in the United States and Mexico. Santander Consumer Finance (SCF) is the auto finance provider in Europe by loan volume (over €140 billion), with operations in 18 countries.
Openbank and SCF support new customers every day with their financing needs across Europe, whether it is to “buy a car, a mobile phone, a washing machine, a house or any other kind of personal finance.”
Recently, the combined management of Openbank and SCF has driven new business by partnering with retailers like Apple, Amazon or Vodafone in different European nations.
This move should enable SCF and Openbank customers to access a range of products as they will be able to take advantage of the complete offering of the combined business via a unified digital platform, with a single access point for banking, lending as well as payments.
Openbank offers in various markets an automated investment service, Robo Advisor – a broker platform that comes with with AI-powered tools that delivers target prices for European and US stocks and has introduced a crypto trading service.
