Company: BCDRF
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0000891478-25-000054
Chunk: 1005

Company: Banco Santander, S.A.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 20-F
Chunk 1005
---
 each member state (unless justified by particular circumstances).

Additionally, entities for which public financial assistance has been requested or received from the European Stability Mechanism or the European Financial Stability Facility shall not be considered 'less significant'.

Based on these criteria, as of 1 November 2024 the ECB directly supervised 114 'significant banks' in the euro area. In the case of Spain, as of the date of this annual report, 10 significant credit institutions and financial holding groups are directly supervised by the ECB. We have been categorized as a significant institution.

To directly supervise the significant banks, the ECB has created two directorate generals, DG Microprudential Supervision I and DG Microprudential II, which perform the continuous day-to-day monitoring of the 114 groups. The supervision of specific aspects or matters, what is known as on-site inspection, is carried out by different teams. The ECB has thus adopted a different model to that place at the Bank of Spain to date: functionally separating the continuous monitoring of banks and inspection visits.

With regard to significant Spanish banks, the Bank of Spain, in addition to providing its experience and most of the staff of the joint supervisory teams, will shoulder the weight of on-site inspections, it will participate in the preparation of all the decisions to be adopted by the ECB Supervisory Board and it will be active in the exercise of its sanctioning powers. As regards the sanctioning regime, the ECB is responsible for imposing sanctions, provided that three requirements are met: that the sanction is imposed on the credit institution, i.e. on the legal

person; that it stems from non-compliance with directly applicable European Union legal rules; and that the sanctions are of a pecuniary nature. In the remaining cases, power will continue to be exercised by the national supervisory authorities, without prejudice to the ECB being able to demand that the appropriate proceedings be initiated.

There are certain areas of banking activity whose supervision is not assumed by the SSM, but continue to be within the purview of the national authorities. The Bank of Spain thus continues to exercise supervisory powers in the areas of money laundering prevention, consumer protection and, partly, in the oversight of financial markets. It also retains the supervision of banking foundations associated with regional governments. In addition to this, the Bank of Spain, like the other national supervisory authorities participating in the SSM, fully retains its supervisory powers over non-bank financial institutions, other financial institutions and entities related to the financial sector such as payment institutions, electronic