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Western EuropeJuly 5 2010

Across the board

Increasing efficiency: Santander Group's chief information officer José María Fuster has overseen a major IT system restructuring programmeSantander's acquisition spree has left the bank with a major IT challenge. But as José María Fuster, its CIO, explains, the bank has embraced IT integration as an all-encompassing transformation programme. Writer Wendy Atkins
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Across the board

While the budgetary constraints wrought by the global economic slump have forced many banks to seek more dynamic ways of consuming and paying for IT, there are a number of institutions for whom major IT spend is simply not a matter of choice: Nomura, Barclays Capital, Lloyds Banking Group, Wells Fargo and of course Santander, to name but the most obvious few. Bloated by major emergency acquisitions, these institutions have spent the past 18 months attempting to digest and rationalise their new, expansive and highly complex IT estates.

Spanish banking giant Santander Group is among the most notable of these organisations, having made a whole raft of major acquisitions in the past decade, including the takeover of Abbey in 2004. Through the consortium-led takeover of ABN Amro, Santander went on, in 2008, to acquire Banco Real in Brazil, doubling its presence in the country. In the same year, the Spanish giant increased its presence in the UK by swallowing up Alliance & Leicester and the troubled Bradford & Bingley branch network, to become the country's third largest bank by deposits. Not content with its European and Latin American expansion, in 2009 the bank established a firm foothold in the US retail banking market with the full-scale acquisition of Sovereign Bancorp.

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