Company: BCDRF
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0000891478-25-000054
Chunk: 465

Company: Banco Santander, S.A.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 20-F
Chunk 465
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 or which global business is affected.

• The ability to anticipate potential events is decisive in the final result, especially in internal and external communication and in case of events that affect critical services with customers or require frequent contact with competent authorities.

Despite the very different nature of the events managed, our crisis management model once again demonstrated its strength. There are two fundamental and defining aspects of our model:

• Coordination between and with the subsidiaries and the five global businesses. Cooperation between the different units is not only a strength of the operating model under normal conditions, but has also proven to be a strength in times of crisis. There are several instruments that support this coordination such as i) the ability to summon global crisis governing bodies (e.g., Bronze teams and/or global Silver forum); ii) the close relationship between Crisis Management Directors (CMDs), crisis management managers and the involved functions; or iii) the ongoing issuance of corporate guidelines to facilitate decision-making.

• Early incident management. Through Bronze teams, we have been able to give a quick and proactive response to the most critical events.

However, in order to further strengthen our crisis management model, we carried out several initiatives:

• A more granular taxonomy and methodology is available for the identification and classification of events, both for financial and non-financial events.

• We integrated new decision-making processes to strengthen confidentiality and protect the security of our employees and customers.

• We assigned new roles to align the crisis management function to the new organizational model based on five global businesses.

• We further developed the process governing the response to humanitarian crises. By using the corporate guide, units are able to determine the severity of these events depending on their scale and urgency, as well as the action and governance framework for each situation.

In short, despite the challenges faced in 2024, the Group has shown it has the right tools to respond to crises of very different nature. However, given the complexity of the current environment and the potential threats facing the banking industry, the Group remains committed to strengthening crisis management mechanisms and instruments.

Annual report 2024 434

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

Recovery plans

Context . Santander drew up its 15 th corporate recovery plan in 2024. It sets out measures we have at our disposal to survive a very severe crisis without extraordinary public aid, in accordance with article 5.3 of the BRRD.

Its primary aims are