There is no better wealth manager in Latin America than Banco Santander. It won the award for best private bank in Latin America in Euromoney’s 2023 private banking awards.
Drilling down a little further, Santander was also voted the best international private bank in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. It has a strong local presence in each of those markets except Peru, which it serves, along with Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia, from its Miami hub. That pan-regional reach is central to its success: rising flows of individual wealth between the likes of Argentina and Spain, Brazil and Portugal, and Colombia and Peru boosted collaboration revenues by 25% last year.
A key selling point is the bank’s international reach, spreading out from Latin America to north America and Europe. The bank has a 1,400-strong team of relationship managers based in the region, overseeing client assets and liabilities worth €109 billion, as of the end of 2022, up 2.6% year on year.
More impressively, it posted a 20% rise in regional net new money, in a tough year when most big banks saw new money plateau or fall. That boosted pre-tax profit by 37% to €364 million. Another key financial highlight was the slight rise – by 1%, to €44 billion – in the volume of fee-based mandates (discretionary portfolio management plus professional advisory fees) in 2022, outpacing its main rivals.
At the end of 2022, it served 48,000 privately wealthy clients in the region, with the number of ultra-high net-worth clients up 16% to 3,090.
As travel continued to reopen, Santander took the opportunity to roll out a host of new and enhanced services. It launched a feeder fund for the Brazilian private equity firm EB Capital, raising R$250 million ($51 million), and its first open-ended private credit fund, another local feeder fund managed by its alternatives team in Miami. In Mexico, it unveiled a scheme that gives clients the opportunity to invest in a fund managed by Eagle Property Capital Investments and Promecap.
This recognition demonstrates our unique model’s strengths, combining deep local knowledge with global reach
Víctor Matarranz
“The past year has been key to our path to becoming the best global platform for wealth management in Europe and the Americas, and this recognition demonstrates our unique model’s strengths, combining deep local knowledge with global reach to provide our clients with the best opportunities wherever they arise,” says Víctor Matarranz, global head of Santander wealth management and insurance. “The award is also a testament to the excellent work, commitment and client focus of our teams.”
Santander continues to push the envelope in technology. The number of digital private clients it serves rose 11% in 2022. Its Mis Objetivos service in Chile gives clients personalized financial advice and guidance on investing in mutual funds. In Brazil, Home Bolsa helps them manage their stock market performance more efficiently via a raft of new features.
And Spirit, a multi-language tool, helps relationship managers working outside the office and on the road keep up to date with client portfolios, giving them real-time access to family and historical data, regulatory information and the latest tailored investment proposals. It is more proof of how far Santander has come in Latin America – and how committed it is to stay ahead of the pack in private banking.
