Ana Botín, President of Banco Santander, confirmed that the entity “enjoys the values of a family business and a long-term vision” during her participation in the Family Business Conference held in Bilbao. “In recent years, we have tripled our dividend per share, but at the same time we are investing $2.5 billion a year in changing the bank. We should be profitable today, but not only now, but also in a hundred years.”
To do that, he said, “we have to create a global, open platform for financial services.” Our big challenge is to transform ourselves to be competitive and sustainable over time, to be able to compete with the big platforms, because “our biggest competitor will be Apple.” New customers go to new competitors.”
The reality is that the struggle for savings is intensifying as the high interest rate scenario takes hold and banks become more vulnerable to deposit leakage, partly because they are performing worse than other alternatives that are emerging.
Apple has already entered the financial services business, and thus this year launched a high-profit savings account called Savings for users of Apple Card, its credit card. The tech giant makes two claims: an interest rate of 4.15% per annum, more than ten times the national average of what traditional entities offer, and the ease of establishing it through its wallet app.
benefits
On the other hand, the Santander president defended that “dividend is healthy because it is the best way to help society,” recalling that “Santander allocates a third of its profits to pay taxes, a third to reward shareholders and a third to give credit.”
Likewise, he highlighted that sometimes when you make a purchase, you have to decide which culture you are betting on. “When you put two drunks together in a bar, what you get is not a sober person,” he joked regarding bank mergers., recalling the bank’s acquisitions in the United Kingdom. “The first thing you need is leadership and you need the right people and in England we had to make a lot of changes,” he recalls.
Like the head of the Family Business Institute, Andres Sendagurta, Anna Botín highlighted the “imbalance between supply and demand.” In this sense, he highlighted the importance of diversity, “because not everyone has to have a university degree.” “It’s essential. We have 165 million customers of all types and we need diversity in the workforce,” she said, with a particular focus on female talent, “although I don’t believe in quotas.”
“We need companies”
During his speech in a dialogue with Sabina Floksa, Vice President and CEO of Iberostar Group, Putin highlighted that “we need companies for society to function” and, in parallel, showed his concern about the geopolitical context. He stressed, “We are in a world of increasing uncertainty, which affects not only governments, but also companies.” Putin stressed that the most important issue in the room is “relations between the United States and China,” because of what it means for the supply chain and data management.
Regarding sustainability, he highlighted that “there cannot be only brown or green because we also have to finance the transformation and we are not on that path in Europe, and now you are either green or brown.” Putin highlighted that “governments have a fundamental role” and highlighted this “Companies do much more than they ask of us, but we need the support of institutions.”. He concluded by saying: “The costs of this transformation must be paid, and the big challenge is who pays for it. The rules they have set for us must allow us to finance this transformation.”
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