Traditional banking career paths may be becoming a thing of the past.

Central and eastern Europe’s best bank for corporate responsibility this year inevitably goes to an institution that has focused on aid for Ukrainian refugees. For many banks in the region, this was an overwhelming priority during the first days and weeks of the war.

Small and medium-sized enterprises are particularly vulnerable to the economic shocks that have buffeted the region in recent months. Any bank that serves these businesses needs to be acutely aware of the challenges they face and have deep experience across the region in how to deal with them.

Banking in Europe remains a national sport, with only a handful of domestic champions also running large businesses beyond their home markets. Banco Santander is recognized as the region’s best bank this year as a reflection of its progress in moving operations in Portugal, Spain and the UK onto a single operating platform along with those in Poland, which it also includes in its Europe division.

The financial inclusion skills within the bank are becoming more relevant for broader retail banking.

The war in Ukraine has further highlighted the benefits of Banco Santander’s diversification across Europe and the Americas, according to executive chairman Ana Botín. However, its European home market may be a big disadvantage in Citi’s looming auction of Mexican lender Banamex.

JPMorgan is named the world’s best wealth manager in Euromoney’s latest private banking and wealth management survey. It is testament to the US bank’s global strength in serving the wealthiest families, along with its drive to constantly transform itself and boost diversity as it hires the most talented relationship managers in core markets.

Non-bank lenders are offering growing volumes of embedded finance both wholesale to merchants selling on e-commerce marketplaces and to their retail customers.

Executive chairman Ana Botín will be under pressure after adverse ruling in Madrid

Covid barely dented the strength of the banking system and most banks have been steadily releasing the provisions they took. Euromoney talks to the leaders of our 25 reviewed banks and others about the challenges they face as the world normalizes.

After years when the UK and the US banks were Santander’s problem children, those markets are now leading its recovery.

Rising inflation expectations matter to the banking industry. Santander CEO José Antonio Álvarez explains, however, that negative real rates will probably persist for the next five or 10 years because of Covid.

The Spanish group’s retail footprint makes it uniquely qualified to address unbanked, underbanked and financially vulnerable individuals.

Euromoney’s inaugural award for innovation goes to a groundbreaking issue of digital native tokens on a public blockchain in a syndicated bond deal that drew interest from 100 investors. While institutional money flows into crypto and DeFi, leading banks and issuers are now also keen to transform traditional markets with digital assets and digital cash.

The big question remains when governments will return to fiscal consolidation. How will NPLs fare when taxpayer support is withdrawn is also in doubt.

Santander, under the leadership of its group chief executive Jose Antonio Álvarez, was the first international bank to really focus on the small and medium-sized enterprise segment across the markets in which it operates.

ESG has surged in importance as a financing theme in Latin America over the past 12 months. Financial institutions of all sizes and types have been scrambling to emphasize how the components of ESG are now core to business strategy. It’s often hard to see through the messaging, but that’s not the case with Santander. The bank is truly a leader in embedding sustainable finance in the business. Its group executive chairman Ana Botín has championed the bank’s net-zero carbon ambitions, but it’s under the leadership of Santander’s group chief executive, Jose Antonio Álvarez, that the bank has become a sustainability leader in Latin America.

Santander has spent four years catching up with local and regional rivals that were quicker to adapt to mobile banking. In 2017 it saw itself as the leading bank in Spain but found its app ranked 13th in the country. The bank’s leaders, under executive chairman Ana Botín, realized they had to transform Santander and give key senior executives specific responsibility.

The past year has shown how building a corporate and investment bank more equivalent to its standing in retail could be a vital prop to Santander’s earnings, especially in Europe. Does divisional head José Maria Linares now have the backing to match his ambitions?

The masks stay on as Ana Botín and Andrea Orcel face off in court.

Less charismatic chief executives will serve Europe’s banks well in the 2020s – unless it simply means that more power will reside with their chairmen.

The Spanish group’s rise to private banking prominence didn’t happen overnight. An internal merger helped, as did work integrating Europe and Latin America. The next step will be the biggest of all, as it begins a concerted push into the US.

Wealth managers profited from the volatility of 2020. With the same beneficial gyrations unlikely in 2021, Victor Matarranz, global head of Santander Wealth Management and Insurance at Banco Santander, says the hard work starts now.

Brazil’s fintechs and digital challenger banks are making more ground than traditional firms with the central bank’s new payments system.

Covid-19 has hit the Spanish lender particularly hard, but the pandemic could spur a longer-term strategic shift.

Selling its US bank to PNC fixes BBVA’s capital problem and allows it to consolidate in Spain. Arch-rival Santander’s similar troubles may be harder to solve.

Covid-19 adds to the urgency of reorientating retail to e-commerce. Combining Openbank with consumer finance is the logical next step in Santander’s cloud-based banking transformation.

As European bank consolidation finally gets under way, Euromoney looks at the financial firepower of the region’s top 20 players. Which banks are now best-placed to do the acquiring and which are at risk of being swallowed up? Mid-tier banks in southern Europe look especially vulnerable.

Chile’s new financial portability law came into effect in September, providing a huge shot in the arm to financial innovation in Latin America’s most stable banking market.

Rushing back to capital distributions won’t solve the sector’s deeper crisis.