Following the purchase of ABN Amro and its Brazilian subsidiary Banco Real, Santander is the third largest financial institution in the country.
The president of Banco Santander, Emilio Botín, stated today in the Mexican capital that the financial group he leads is now betting "even more" on Latin America and assured that the sale of the Spanish bank's pension business in the region is a "strategic operation".
Speaking to Efe, at the end of his participation in the inauguration of the II Meeting of Rectors of Universia, Botín explained that Santander "has been committed to Latin America for many years and is now committing even more."
An example of this is the recent purchase in Brazil of Banco Real, the Brazilian subsidiary of the Dutch bank ABN Amro, a new acquisition by a consortium led by the Spanish institution, the Spanish executive stated.
By acquiring ABN Amro's assets in Brazil, such as Banco Real, Santander positions itself as the third largest financial institution in that country, behind the state-owned Banco do Brasil and the private Bradesco, and surpassing the solid Banco Itaú.
"Santander's commitment to Latin America is enormous, and it continues to be so," Botín insisted.
In this regard, he noted that Santander is already beginning to develop programs to integrate the operations of ABN Amro, which the Spanish bank acquired together with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and the Belgian-Dutch financial institution Fortis.
"We're just starting, I was just in Brazil this past weekend, and we're starting to study it, so we're working on it," he told Efe.
On the other hand, he rejected the notion that the recent sale of Santander's pension business in Latin America to the Dutch bank ING could be interpreted as a sign of less commitment from the bank to the region.
The sale of the pensions was "because we thought it was better to invest that money in other things. We are investing $2.000 billion in opening offices and other things," he noted.
"It has been a strategic operation to invest, instead of in pensions, in banking, which is our area of expertise," stressed Botín, who today announced in the Mexican capital support for 50 million dollars to create, among other projects, a student exchange network in Latin America similar to the "Erasmus" that operates in the countries of the European Union.
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