Company: BCDRF
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0000891478-25-000054
Chunk: 1046

Company: Banco Santander, S.A.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 20-F
Chunk 1046
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 limits on terms and conditions, pricing and a maximum debt-to-income ratio. Loans eligible for purchase, guarantee or insurance by a government agency or government-sponsored enterprise are exempt from some of these requirements. Satisfying the qualified mortgage standards, ensuring correct calculations are made for individual loans, recordkeeping and monitoring, as well as understanding the effect of the qualified mortgage standards on CRA obligations, impose significant compliance obligations on, and involve compliance costs for, US mortgage lenders, including ours.

Federal and state regulators have also been increasingly focused on sales practices of branch personnel, including taking regulatory action against other financial institutions. We monitor and review our sales practices in light of evolving regulatory expectations. Any restrictions on our ability to offer our products could reduce earnings, increase compliance costs and expose us to litigation or regulatory actions.

Community Reinvestment Act

The CRA is intended to encourage banks to help meet the credit needs of their service areas, including low- and moderate-income neighbourhoods, consistent with safe and sound banking practices. The relevant federal bank regulatory agency, the OCC in Santander Bank’s case, examines each bank and assigns it a public CRA rating. A bank’s record of fair lending compliance is part of the resulting CRA examination report. Santander Bank is subject to the CRA. Santander Bank’s most recent public CRA report of examination rated Santander Bank as 'Outstanding' for the 1 January 2020 through 31 December 2022 evaluation period. The OCC takes into account Santander Bank’s CRA rating in considering certain regulatory applications Santander Bank makes, including applications related to establishing and relocating branches, and the Federal Reserve Board does the same with respect to certain regulatory applications Santander Holdings USA makes. In October 2023, the Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, and OCC finalized a rule that materially revises the current CRA framework, including new assessment area requirements, new methods of calculating credit for lending, investment, and service activities, and additional data collection and reporting requirements. The final CRA rule has been challenged in a court and a federal district court has granted a preliminary injunction, delaying implementation of the rule until the case is resolved.

Banco Santander will continue to monitor CRA-related developments and assess their impact on its operations, as necessary.

FDIC as receiver or conservator of Santander Bank

Upon the insolvency of an insured depository institution, such as Santander Bank, the FDIC may be appointed as the conservator or receiver of the institution. Under the Dodd-Frank Act’s Orderly Liquidation Authority, upon the ins