Santander UK ’ s future growth will also be propelled by changing winds in the macroeconomic landscape . Challenges in the past few years , including inflation and the cost-of-living crisis , are expected to subside , giving Santander the perfect opportunity to scale its digital banking services .
“ We have to take the foundations we ’ ve built and generate business growth from those changes ,” Narang notes . “ So , it ’ s not just efficiency that we ’ re trying to achieve , but actually growing in the market . That ’ s the next phase of our development .”
This goal to secure future growth is not constrained to just Santander UK , either . The bank ’ s transformation journey has been implemented across the wider Banco Santander group . It ’ s even got a name : One Transformation .
“ It doesn ’ t matter if it ’ s Santander in the UK , Spain , Germany , the US or Brazil ; the vision is streamlined across the globe , and you can see that in the similarities between the group ’ s different digital platforms ,” adds Narang .
Scaling mobile banking across the group A streamlined vision is matched by Santander ’ s approach to using one common mobile banking application across the four key European markets in which it operates : the UK , Spain , Poland and Portugal .
“ In our key European markets , we brought the talent , thinking , infrastructure and core layers together to create our mobile banking application ,” says Narang . “ Around 70-80 % of our mobile banking components are similar across the board , with nuances in place for each of our European marketplaces to best meet consumer needs .
“ The last 25-30 % of the stack is tailored to specific local markets , but the core of what we offer is aligned to what we do as part of the larger group .” santander . co . uk 13