Santander Bank ‘20

Represented By:
Karim Hill
Regional President

AWARD PROFILE

Courageous Thinking and Action
Santander Bank N.A. (“Santander” or “Santander Bank”) prospers when our communities prosper. At Santander, giving back is part of our culture. Our Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”) framework focuses on our commitment to Responsible Banking, Inclusive Communities and making a difference in three key ways: charitable contributions, volunteering and community partnerships, and our businesses.

At the core of delivering on our CSR commitment is our employees. Our employees’ varied experiences and diverse backgrounds strengthen our workplace and communities. With approximately 9,200 team members across Santander Bank’s footprint, it helps people and businesses prosper by fostering financial inclusion and sustainable and inclusive growth. Between 2019 and 2020, many team members logged more than 30,000 hours volunteering in the communities where they work and live.

Vision & Innovation
Santander Bank, based in Boston, is one of the country’s largest retail and commercial banks with $89.5 billion in assets. With a commercial presence throughout the country and retail branches in eight states across the economically vibrant Northeast corridor, Boston-based Santander Bank is strong, well-capitalized, and one of five businesses comprising Santander Holdings USA, Inc. (“SHUSA”), the Santander Group’s operating business in the United States, which is also headquartered in Boston.

Santander aims to be the bank of choice for customers across its footprint by providing competitive products, services and advice that help people and businesses prosper by making meaningful progress toward their financial goals.

Inspiring Leadership
Today’s banking customers have more power and choice than ever before. They don’t just expect Santander to deliver services at a great price, but want their bank to help address wider challenges that society faces. Not only do we need to excel at delivering basic services, we must do so in a socially responsible manner that demonstrates our businesses are delivering profit with purpose.

In May 2018, Santander US’s parent, Banco Santander S.A., joined 26 other leading banks from five continents as the first organizations to endorse the United Nations Environment Finance Initiative and the Principles of Responsible Banking. Responsible Banking establishes a framework built through stakeholders to ensure sustainability and align business strategies with societal and community goals. SHUSA is working within this framework to establish Responsible Banking initiatives across all its U.S. businesses that are focused on people, customers, communities and shareholders, and include: boosting our financial and social inclusion agenda; growing sustainable and responsible products; aligning risk with inclusive and sustainable growth; continuing to embed Simple, Person and Fair principles in all we do; and building customer trust around data.

Community Mindedness
At Santander Bank, we are four years into our Inclusive Communities Plan. Announced in 2017, the $11 billion, five-year commitment to lending, community development and charitable giving in our Northeast banking footprint will boost our Community Reinvestment Act activity by 50 percent and triple our charitable giving to $55 million. Our Inclusive Communities Plan supports partnerships with organizations focused on financial empowerment, small business and entrepreneurship and affordable housing and healthy neighborhoods, with an emphasis on underserved neighborhoods in the communities we serve.

Team members across our bank have made Junior Achievement a cornerstone for Santander. Since 2017, our employees have completed more than 20,000 hours of volunteer service from more than 3,000 individual instances of volunteerism. The time and support we’ve dedicated to Junior Achievement make us proud to know we have reached nearly 40,000 students in their journey to becoming financially independent and literate. 

JA Mission Moment
“I lead a terrific team in Rhode Island, and it has been so rewarding to see the impact of the programming on our state’s young people as they begin their financial journeys. Junior Achievement’s mission of empowering young people to own their economic success aligns with Santander’s goal to help our customers, colleagues, and communities prosper. My team is grateful to have had the opportunity to support the important work Junior Achievement is doing in schools like Potter Burns, The Robert Kennedy School, The Elizabeth Baldwin School, and others where I have seen our missions in action together. With my colleagues’ help, we are so proud of our partnership with Junior Achievement in schools not only in Rhode Island, but across the Northeast, and know that through delivering high-quality curriculum focusing on workforce development, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy, I know together we can help make a difference in the financial future of our citizens.”