Company: BCDRF
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0000891478-25-000054
Chunk: 1012

Company: Banco Santander, S.A.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 20-F
Chunk 1012
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 of common equity tier 1 or in a reduction of the profits reduced, provided that the suspension or cancellation of the payment does not constitute an event of default of the payment obligations or other circumstances that lead to the opening of an insolvency proceeding. In addition, according to Article 16.a) of the BRRD, any failure by an institution to meet the combined buffer requirement when considered in addition to the applicable minimum TLAC/MREL Requirements is intended to be treated in a similar manner as a failure to meet the combined buffer requirement on top of its minimum regulatory capital requirements, i.e. a resolution authority will have the power to impose restrictions or prohibitions on discretionary payments by a credit institution. The referred Article 16.a) of the BRRD includes a potential nine-month grace period whereby the resolution authority will assess on a monthly basis whether to exercise its powers, after such nine-month period the resolution authority is compelled to exercise its power to restrict discretionary payments (subject to certain limited exceptions). These restrictions have been implemented in Spain by means of Article 16bis of Law 11/2015.

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| Contents |     | Cross-reference to Form 20-F |     | Consolidated director's report |     | Consolidated financial statements |     | Supplemental information |

After the restrictions imposed in response to the effects of the covid-19 pandemic, the ECB on 23 July 2021, decided in Recommendation 2021/31 not to extend the restrictions beyond 30 September 2021, and it has reinstated the pre-pandemic supervisory practices by which it recommends that banks under its direct supervision exercise extreme prudence on dividends and share buy backs.

Privacy, data protection and cybersecurity

We are subject to a variety of increasingly stringent laws, regulations, rules and standards relating to privacy, data protection and cybersecurity, and the legal and regulatory framework for privacy, data protection and cybersecurity is in considerable flux and evolving rapidly. As privacy, data protection and cybersecurity risks for banking organizations and the broader financial system have significantly increased in recent years, privacy, data protection and cybersecurity issues have become the subject of increasing legislative and regulatory focus.

On 25 May 2018, the GDPR became directly applicable in all Member States of the EU. The GDPR creates additional requirements for the protection of natural persons with respect to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data. To align the Spanish legal regime with the GDPR, Spain enacted the Organic Law 3/2018, of 5 December, on Data