Spanish banking group Santander has earmarked over €20bn in technology upgrades over the next four years.
In order to drive its digital transformation, Santander plans to move its IT infrastructure towards a multi-cloud environment.
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Deployment of machine learning and robotics at scale will be prioritised.
In a bid to enhance pricing, the bank will also negotiate provider contracts globally.
The focus of the bank’s open financial services platform will be payments.
Santander plans to extend its international payments solution One Pay FX to non-customers towards achieving this goal.
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By GlobalDataPlans are also on to expand the bank’s Brazilian unit Getnet worldwide and develop a global trade services platform.
Moreover, Santander intends to bolster the presence of its digital bank Openbank to 10 new international markets.
Santander chairwoman Ana Botín said: “Technology is changing banking as we know it and we are positioning the company to capitalise on the world class assets we have across the group, including our technology, talent and scale.
“This will allow us to benefit from the opportunities presented by digital innovation and will result in us becoming a digital leader in global financial services for the next decade.”
The bank plans to cut incremental annual costs by €1.2bn by improving operating efficiency.
The cuts will primarily impact the bank’s European division.
The business is expected to account for around €1bn of the cuts, with almost a tenth of it coming from the UK.
This January, Santander unveiled plans to shutter 140 UK branches due to increasing adoption of digital banking channels by customers.
On the other hand, the bank anticipates “high and sustainable revenue growth” in Latin America.
It expects the underlying RoTE in the region to improve to 20-22% from 19% last year.
Meanwhile, Santander also shrunk its management committee.
The committee now has 11 executives, down from the previous figure of 24.
Santander UK chief Nathan Bostock will step down from the committee while Gerry Byrne will represent Europe.
