Mortgages, cards, paid accounts… Banco Santander simplifies its product catalog by 35% in the last year

Santander Bank steps on the accelerator with the simplification of its commercial banking catalog and reduces the number of products to 4,200. This is 35% less compared to the 6,500 it had in September of last year. The cut exceeds the 50% if compared to 10,100 in December 2022, just before the arrival of the CEO, Hector Grisito the Cantabrian entity. His arrival coincided with the launch of the ‘ONE Transformation’ plan, which aims to improve efficiency and drive the bank’s growth by taking advantage of global scale.

“We simplify the catalog so that executives are focused on offering a better customer experience,” Grisi recently detailed, thereby expressing his commitment to continue slimming down his commercial offering. Mortgages, cards, paid accounts… The group has advanced its strategy gradually. If in 2023 the volume of the showcase decreased by 16%, the following year the reduction reached almost 50%. In the first nine months of 2025 it already reaches almost 20%.

As an example, the type of consumer loans in Spain has gone from 16 to two, while in Mexico the number of mortgages sold has gone from 17 to only three. The idea is also to simplify the number of debit and credit cards, as well as unifying the application so that all users of the group, regardless of the country, have the same one. The process started in Europe with the development of a platform that shares 80% of elements in terms of design, technology or data collection, while the other 20% It would be customizable for each country according to the regulatory or cultural requirements of the region.

However, it has been Brazil the geography chosen to launch One APP, the new Banco Santander’s global mobile banking platform, from which they intend to extend it to more territories. Santander is committed to an integrated model through its five global areas into which it is divided with this new strategy: commercial banking (retail & commercial banking); digital consumption (digital consumer bank); corporate and investment banking (corporate & investment banking); insurance and wealth management (wealth management & insurance) and payments (payments).

This plan seeks to create an operating model of shared global platforms for its more than 178 million customers worldwide, of which more than 62.5 million are digital users. Of this amount, 106 million are classified as active clients. One of the levers of ONE Transformation It goes through digitalization and self-service. As can be seen from its financial report for the third quarter, the digitalization of products, as well as the optimization of customer journeys – which ranges from when a potential customer is identified until they become loyal – It is one of the cornerstones of your current roadmapwhich has translated into double-digit year-on-year growth in digital sales.

“Hyperpersonalization” has also been a relevant factor, contributing to the growth of commissions, which increased by 5% year-on-year, especially related to investment funds, currencies and insurancewith Argentina, Mexico and the United Kingdom being the markets in which it has recorded the best performance. The focus is usually placed on the commercial banking division when analyzing the reduction in the number of products, given that in the rest the showcase is more limited as they are options that are more tailored to the client, such as in private banking.

“Our cost management continues to focus on improving our efficiency structurally. To this end, we continue with the transformation plan of our business model, which provides greater operating leverage, improving commercial dynamics and promoting structures lighter and more agile,” they emphasize. It so happens that in the retail area efficiency stood at 39.2% at the end of the third quarter, the second lowest of all divisions, only behind Wealth. Overall, this indicator, which measures the expenditure necessary to generate income and, therefore, is better the lower it is, stood at 41.3% at the end of September, its best mark in fifteen years.

“We continue to move forward with the vision of being a digital bank with branches, through the implementation of a common operating model and the deployment of our global technology platform”they explain in said report. Part of The improvement in metrics is also supported by cutting of the office network, which has gone from slightly exceeding 8,000 branches to below 7,400. The figure is influenced by the adjustment plan announced in the United Kingdom at the beginning of the year, which entails the closure of conventional offices in order to promote spaces such as WorkCafés, with new openings in the British country and Brazil. “In Spain we are also going to start seeing more spaces of this type because the way in which customers are changing,” Grisi defended during the presentation of results.