How Verizon figures into Santander’s U.S. growth plan

Santander Bank is continuing to sketch out its U.S. growth strategy, building on the launch of its nationwide deposit franchise last year.

On Tuesday, the U.S. arm of Spanish banking giant Banco Santander announced a multiyear partnership with telecom powerhouse Verizon. The deal allows eligible Verizon customers to open a high-yield savings account through Santander’s nationwide digital bank Openbank, providing the bank with a new pipeline for adding customers.

If depositors maintain an average daily balance of at least $1,000, they will be eligible to earn as much as $180 a year in credits toward their Verizon mobile and 5G home internet bills.

The bill credit is based on average daily balances. Customers will get up to $5 a month for balances of $1,000 to $9,999.99, the bank said. The monthly credit rises to $10 per month for balances between $10,000 and $29,999.99, and to $15 per month for balances of $30,000 and above. The offer is valid for up to 12 consecutive months from the account-opening date.

The partnership, which is the first of its kind for Santander in the United States, is the latest step in the company’s ongoing efforts to expand its scale stateside and become a leading digital bank. In October, Santander launched Openbank as a way to gather more deposits to fund its U.S. auto lending business, and it continues to lean heavily into being “a digital bank with branches.”

The opportunity to tap into Verizon’s massive customer base is a big win for the bank as it continues to collect deposits beyond its existing nine-state, 400-retail branch franchise. As of December, Verizon’s consumer group had 115.3 million wireless retail connections and 10 million broadband connections, according to a fact sheet posted on the company’s website.

“The Verizon partnership is a significant milestone for Santander as we scale our U.S. business,” Ana Botín, executive chair of Banco Santander, said in a press release. “This is an important step in our growth strategy and I am excited for what’s ahead.”

Santander Bank, which is based in Boston and employs about 12,000 people in the U.S., has been in transition mode. In late January, Banco Santander named Christiana Riley as CEO of its U.S. operations, including the retail bank and Santander Consumer USA, which provides auto loans. Riley, a longtime Deutsche Bank executive who joined Santander in 2023 as its regional head of North America, succeeded Tim Wennes, who departed the company.

A year ago, Santander hired Swati Bhatia, former head ofGoldman Sachs’ digital brand Marcus, to oversee its consumer and business banking business, as well as its digital transformation efforts.