page_title: Santander Consumer Bank (Deutschland)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Santander Consumer Bank (Deutschland) / History
context_page_description: The Santander Consumer Bank AG is a German Credit Institution in the legal form of a corporation with headquarters in Mönchengladbach. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Spanish Banco Santander S.A.
  The Santander Group is one of the largest banks in the world with over 133 million customers and presence in more than 40 countries. In Germany, the bank is represented by the Santander Consumer Bank AG. The Santander Consumer Bank AG has a loan portfolio of €30.8 billion and has about 5.6 million customers.
  The business model of Santander Consumer Bank AG is based on three pillars: retail banking, vehicle financing and consumer financing. The Santander Consumer Bank AG is the largest manufacturer-independent bank in the field of car, motorcycle, and caravan financing and maintains ten dealer sales centers in the metropolitan areas of Hamburg, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Munich, Hanover, Berlin, Stuttgart and Mönchengladbach. The consumer financing business focuses on the consumer electronics, computer and furniture retail sectors.
  The Santander Consumer Bank AG has 211 branches in Germany. All banking services are also offered directly via online and telephone banking.
context_section_description: The bank was founded in 1957 as Curt Briechle KG Absatzfinanzierung by businessman Curt Briechle in Mönchengladbach as a sales financing company for automobiles. In 1968, the company was converted into a public limited company and renamed Bankhaus Centrale Credit AG.
  In 1987, the Spanish bank Banco Santander Central Hispano (BSCH) acquired 100% of the bank and renamed it CC-Bank AG. In 1988, the Royal Bank of Scotland acquired 50% of the CC-Bank's shares. In 1996, the Santander Central Hispano bought back the shares from the Royal Bank of Scotland.
  In 2002, the Cologne-based AKB Privat- und Handelsbank merged with the CC-Bank AG. The Cologne headquarter of AKB at Friesenplatz was dissolved. In 2003, the Santander Direkt Bank AG from Frankfurt, which also belonged to the BSCH-Group, was merged with the CC-Bank.
  As of 1 October 2004, the bank's market presence was adapted to the corporate design of the Spanish parent company. Since then, the name of the brand was Santander Consumer CC-Bank; for the time being the official company name remained CC-Bank AG. In August 2007 the official renaming in the commercial register to Santander Consumer Bank AG was made.
  On 1 July 2008, the Royal Bank of Scotland sold its consumer credit business unit ECF (European Consumer Finance) to Santander Consumer Finance. This included RBS (RD Europe) GmbH with branches in Ratingen (Germany), Houten (Netherlands), Merelbeke (Belgium) and Vienna (Austria), which now belong to the German Santander Consumer Holding GmbH. With the purchase the ComfortCard brand in those countries was also taken over.
  As of 1 July 2009, GE Money Bank GmbH in Hanover, which was acquired in November 2008, was merged with the Santander Consumer Bank AG.
  In July 2010 it was announced that the German private customer business of SEB will be sold to Banco Santander. The purchase price for the 173 SEB branches amounted to €555 million. As of 31 January 2011, the private customer business with about 1 million customers and about 2,400 employees was transferred to Santander and now operates under Santander Bank – Zweigniederlassung der Santander Consumer Bank AG.
  On 1 July 2016, a joint venture in which the Santander Consumer Bank AG holds a 50 percent stake, was launched by the PSA Bank Deutschland GmbH. The PSA Bank offers car financing, leasing products and dealer financing with the Peugeot Bank and Citroën Bank brands. Deposits are available through the PSA Direct Bank.
  In September 2016, the bank obtained the license to issue bonds. At the end of November 2017, the bank issued a bond certificate for the first time.
  In 2018, the Santander Consumer Bank AG will unify its brand image and will only perform in Germany as "Santander". As a result, the distribution networks of "Santander Consumer Bank", "Santander Direkt Bank" and "Santander Bank" are merged.
caption: Historical company logo