Company: BCDRF
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0000891478-25-000054
Chunk: 590

Company: Banco Santander, S.A.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 20-F
Chunk 590
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 spotted in 2024, see the next section. • Analysis of business model performance: To identify and assess the main threats to the bank’s and our subsidiaries' business plan and strategic objectives in three areas: • Strategy execution: Assessing the risk of deviation from plans, targets and strategic initiatives. • Viability and sustainability: Assessing our position against competitors and the risk of failing to create shareholder value. • Business plan predictability: The risk of results becoming unpredictable and unstable over time. In 2024, we simplified and strengthened our business model assessment methodology by reducing the number of metrics, dimensions and volatility, giving greater relevance to strategic execution, as well as reinforcing the backtesting of strategic planning • Participation in the assessment and validation of proposals for new products and services prior to their release by verifying they are consistent with the Group's strategy and weighing up their risk against profitability.

Annual report 2024 551

| Contents |     | Business model and strategy |     | Sustainability statement |     | Corporate governance |     | Economic and financial review |     | Riskmanagementandcompliance |

• Corporate development transactions: Encouraging that the analysis of these transactions includes an assessment of their impact on the Group's risk profile and risk appetite.

• Monitoring strategic projects: The Group strategy committee sets out the strategic initiatives inventory every year. We jointly review progress of these initiatives performance twice a year, including an independent challenge from the second line of defence. In 2024, we launched several initiatives, such as those related to the use of Artificial Intelligence, to boost productivity and process automation and increase customer satisfaction. We are also promoting the interoperability of instant payment systems in Europe as a cross-border solution. Moreover, we continued to modernize the Group's core processes — based on cloud computing — to boost efficiency and strengthen our global strategy, which the five global businesses underpin.

The strategic risk function is responsible for providing a consolidated view of the exposure to this risk, providing an independent opinion and challenging the activities of the first line of defence. Senior management regularly receives the Strategic Risk Report, which includes an update on strategy execution, emerging risks, business model performance, corporate development transactions, product marketing, and strategic initiatives.

8.3 Emerging risks in 2024

Our emerging risks exercise aims to detect, assess and monitor risks that may have a significant impact on our business model, profitability and solvency under stressful conditions with low likelihood of occurrence.

Proactive emerging risk management is essential to avoid and mitigate potentially negative impacts on, and deviations from,