The new digital platform will enhance customer experience through faster data access and more agile, simplified commercial processes.

With the implementation of Gravity, Santander is becoming the first major established bank in the Western world to operate 100% in the cloud.

Madrid, 19 June 2025.
Santander has successfully completed one of the key milestones in its transformation by migrating all of its core technology infrastructure in Spain to Gravity, its cloud-based core banking platform. This digital banking platform provides easier and faster access to data, shortens the launch time for new functionalities from weeks to hours, and enables more frequent app updates. This helps generate value for Santander España customers by offering better products and services, and also boosts efficiency.

With the implementation of Gravity, Santander is becoming the first major established bank in the Western world to operate 100% in the cloud, reaching a level of technology comparable to that of digital-native companies, which are built on fully cloud-based architecture from the outset — both on the front-end (user interface) and back-end (internal processing and management).

With this, Santander completes the deployment of Gravity in one of its largest markets, which features the highest number of products, services and business units operating simultaneously across the entire group. Santander España processes more than 4.3 billion transactions per year, with peaks of up to 33,000 transactions per second.

The core banking system is the most critical component of a bank’s technology infrastructure, where primary financial transactions such as transfers, deposits and loans are processed. Santander is one of the first major global banks to digitalize its core banking system and, with the deployment of Gravity in Spain and upcoming rollouts in Brazil and Mexico, the Group will have migrated around 80% of its core technology infrastructure to the cloud across the globe. Once the programme is complete, the Gravity platform will handle more than one trillion technical operations annually across Santander’s systems.

Ignacio Juliá, CEO of Santander España, said: “The deployment of Gravity in Santander España marks a decisive step in the execution of our transformation, as we continue to make headway with other initiatives to evolve our operating model. This milestone enables us to offer our customers a more agile, efficient and secure experience. I want to congratulate the more than 1,000 people involved for their commitment and excellence in bringing this strategic project to life.”

Dirk Marzluf, group chief operating and technology officer, said: “Gravity makes Santander a ‘digital native’ company, with the agility and capability to provide the best customer experience and the security we’ve always offered. We are getting closer to fulfilling Santander’s vision of becoming the best open platform for financial services.”

Gravity is built using best-in-class capabilities, both in-house and from third-party providers. This offers Santander’s nearly 30,000 software developers and engineers a high-performance environment to develop customer-centric applications, as well as enhancing our ability to attract top talent.

The Banker magazine, owned by the Financial Times, named Santander the most innovative bank in the world, the top prize at its digital banking innovation awards. This highlights the successful implementation of Gravity as a “massive and highly ambitious” project. Gravity’s software provides simultaneous data processing, which enables the bank to run workloads both on its mainframe and in the cloud at the same time and perform real-time testing without interrupting operations. Once stability and performance are verified, the bank can switch from the traditional mainframe to the cloud.