Santander’s US Digital Banking Platform Gains 100,000 Customers in 6 Months

Santander Bank N.A. said Wednesday (May 21) that its digital banking platform gained more than 100,000 customers in the U.S. during its first six months of operations in the country.

That growth rate of the Openbank by Santander platform exceeded the bank’s expectations, Santander Bank said in a press release.

“Reaching this milestone at record pace is a testament to our customer-obsessed mindset, commitment to innovation and global connectivity,” Swati Bhatia, head of retail banking and transformation for Santander Bank and CEO of Openbank in the U.S., said in the release.

Having seen this growth, Santander Bank plans to expand Openbank’s offerings beyond the High Yield Savings account it now offers, according to the release. The new products it plans to add include certificates of deposit, payments and checking accounts.

Santander Bank also plans to continue to enhance its bank branches by exploring new formats and providing personalized in-person experiences, per the release. The bank said the transformation efforts it has already undertaken have driven improvements in Net Promoter Scores and growth in retail deposits.

With these growth plans in the U.S., Santander Bank aims to become “a national, digital bank with branches,” it said in the release.

Santander Bank, N.A., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Madrid-based Banco Santander, S.A., currently has 1.8 million customers primarily in eight states in or near the Northeastern U.S.

The bank launched Openbank in the U.S. in October, saying the digital banking platform’s introduction marked a significant expansion of Santander Bank’s U.S. consumer banking operations beyond the Northeast and enabled it to serve customers nationwide.

“The U.S. is a key market for us, where we have been expanding our business over the past years,” Banco Santander Executive Chairman Ana Botín said at the time in a press release. “Openbank is banking made easy and will offer the best high-yield savings accounts in America that is simple and fast with a competitive rate.”

Three days after Openbank was launched in the U.S. with high-yield savings accounts, Botín said at a conference that the bank will have a full-service digital bank in the country by the end of 2025.

In February, Santander Bank said Openbank had surpassed $2 billion in deposits in the U.S. during the first four months after its launch.