Euromoney has named Santander Best Bank in Western Europe, Spain, Chile and Uruguay. In assessing the awards, Euromoney highlighted the importance of the Group’s international diversification. Editor Clive Horwood said: “[Santander] is already one of the few big banks to prove that internationally diversified retail banks can be more profitable, and more stable, than domestic-focused peers. Now it is in its rightful place, not just Spain’s biggest bank, but also the one with the biggest domestic share, too.”

Banco Santander and the new digital platform we.trade today announced in Spain the first real-time trade transactions among companies using blockchain. Over the past few days, 10 companies have completed seven international trade transactions via various banks across five countries using we.trade. Santander is a founding partner of we.trade, a joint venture owned by nine leading European banks which has developed a new blockchain-based platform with the aim of simplifying financial transactions for companies by addressing the challenge of managing, tracking and protecting domestic and international trade transactions. Santander Spain is already carrying out international trade transactions with several companies.