Whether it’s paying by card in a shop, settling the bill in a restaurant with a smartwatch or withdrawing money from an ATM with a mobile phone, millions of transactions are carried out every day, with card payments among the most popular. Here we tell you how our Plard project has boosted card payments globally.  

While card payments have tripled in the past 10 years, this is just the beginning; it’s a payment method that will continue to be a go-to for consumers. According to European Central Bank data, card payments accounted for “56% of the total number of non-cash payments” in the first half of 2024. 

As part of our transformation strategy at Santander, we have a global business in this field: Payments, made up of Global Cards and Getnet. This business aims to enhance our customers’ experience with their debit and credit cards. We have over 106 million cards globally and the Payments business accounts for 10% of our total revenue. 
 

Plard came to life in 2021 to overcome the technical limitations and rigid architecture of previous cards systems and, therefore, enhance customer card experience. We tasked our subsidiary in Brazil with working on a solution that has borne fruit across our footprint.  

Today, Plard is a global debit and credit card issue and management platform that marks a milestone in the payments ecosystem thanks to its design, which: 

• is cloud-native;
• uses data in real time; and 
• can be scaled quickly through modular architecture. 

Among its benefits, this ground-breaking business model enables us to increase revenue and harness new capabilities such as financing and our corporate card proposition. What’s more, as a single and more efficient platform, it helps us cut costs. 

Nonetheless, our ultimate aim is always to enhance customer experience, in this instance by offering a single limit per customer rather than per product.

In Brazil, where Plard originated, it currently processes over 20 million debit cards, while in Chile it’s helping us capture new debit card customers. It’s also operating in Mexico. Our priority now is to roll out Plard in Spain and the UK, where it is currently being tested.