Company: BCDRF
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0000891478-25-000054
Chunk: 1002

Company: Banco Santander, S.A.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 20-F
Chunk 1002
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 to Form 20-F |     | Consolidated director's report |     | Consolidated financial statements |     | Supplemental information |

commercial banking capabilities. Santander UK’s main competitors are established UK banks, building societies and insurance companies and other financial services providers (such as supermarket chains and large retailers).

In the UK credit card market, large retailers and specialist card issuers, including major US operators, are active in addition to the UK banks. In addition to physical distribution channels, providers compete through direct marketing activity and the Internet.

In the United States, Santander Bank competes in the Northeastern, New England and New York retail and mid-corporate banking markets with local and regional banks and other financial institutions. Santander Bank also competes in the US in large corporate lending and specialized finance markets, and in fixed-income trading and sales. Competition is principally with the large US commercial and investment banks and international banks active in the US. Santander Consumer USA Inc., our full-service specialized consumer finance company focused on vehicle finance and third-party servicing based in Dallas, Texas, primarily competes against national and regional banks in the United States, as well as with automobile manufacturers’ captive finance businesses, to originate loans and leases to finance consumers’ purchases of new and used cars.

Competition by fintech providers

In recent years, the development of the internet, as well as advances in mobile and other technologies, have given way for significant changes and transformation of certain financial-related services which had historically been provided almost exclusively by financial (and thereby, regulated) institutions, such as commercial banks. Non-bank digital service providers (known as fintechs) have entered the financial services market and currently compete (and cooperate) among each other and with banks. Fintechs include startup firms specializing in specific services or niches of the financial services market, or large digital players (known as BigTechs), which include companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Apple.

Due to certain regulations, such as those related to financial stability, which are not always applicable to non-bank financial services providers, competition between banks and non-bank players is not entirely on a level playing field. Whereas banks are generally required to apply banking-level controls to all subsidiaries, regardless of their activities, and therefore are required to assume certain costs or carry out longer internal processes with respect to certain activities (i.e. corporate governance requirements), fintechs may only be subject to activity-specific regulations, if at all, and may be able to provide new services that are not yet subject