Santiago 23 March 2020.- At an extraordinary meeting today, Banco Santander Chile's board of directors resolved to move the general shareholders' meeting to Thursday 30 April and propose a new dividend payment system to multiply the bank's resources to be able to help its customers during the current Coronavirus crisis. 

The chairman of the board of directors of Santander Chile, Claudio Melandri, explained that the board decided to unlock additional resources to help its customers during the economic crisis due to the covid-19 pandemic. "All the reports show that greater efforts are needed in the current economic situation to ensure that individuals, SMEs and companies in general are able to access the necessary resources so they can carry on their activities and Santander Chile is prepared to help." 

The general shareholders' meeting, originally scheduled for 21 April, will now take place on Thursday 30 April. Shareholders will be asked to vote on the proposal to allocate 30% of 2019 profit to this year's dividend payment ($0.87891310 per share), 30% to retained earnings and 40% to the bank's reserves. 

The board, which also highlighted the bank's capital levels and its sound credit risk management, agreed on this move until there is greater clarity on the current global crisis and to ensure it has a larger capital base to increase loans to customers. 

Banco Santander Chile is one of the largest banks in the country in terms of total assets, loans and wealth. At 31 December 2019, the bank held total assets amounting to Ch$50,578,246 million (US$67,675 million), net placements to Ch$31,823,735 million (US$42,581 million), total deposits to Ch$23,490,249 million (US$ 31,431 million) and wealth to Ch$3,470,317 million (US$4,643 million). At 31 December, it had 11,200 employees and a large branch network with 377 offices. Its headquarters is located in Santiago and the bank operates in Chile's main regions. Its long-term credit rating is A1 from Moody’s, A from Fitch, A from Standard & Poor's, and A+ from JCR.