Banco Santander announced this Monday the creation of two technology centers in Malaga and Warsaw (Poland) to provide technological support and service to different business areas of the group. These two new hubs will give employ around 1,400 professionals (would about 700 in each of them, as detailed to this newspaper by sources from the entity) with technological profiles from STEM careers (engineering, science, mathematics), which will contribute to the digital and commercial transformation of the bank. From the entity it is commented that the incorporation of all this employment could be completed in a period of about three years.
In the case of Malaga, there are already 45 people incorporated to the center that, for the moment, is located in the office that the bank has in the Alameda Principal. In the future, the entity does not rule out finding its own location to house this hub, according to the sources consulted.
Banco Santander is immersed in an “ambitious” process of contracting technological profiles under the BeTech! This December the bank launched the website betechwithsantander.com, which brings together all the job offers in this field, many of which are aimed at occupying these two technology centers. At the moment vacancies in technology in the group are around 750.
The financial entity has commented that the creation of these hubs will contribute to “reinforcing” the connectivity between the Santander markets under the One Europe operating model.
“Malaga and Warsaw are two of the European cities that have committed the most to incorporating new technology companies into their industrial fabric while offering a great quality of life. Along with these two centers, the group has other similar ones in Bilbao and Valencia (which serve Openbank), Valladolid (Santander Consumer Finance), Solares, Cantabria, as well as in the central services in those countries where the group is present” , says the bank.
Cloud, Big Data, AI or cybersecurity profiles
Both centers, both the one in Malaga and the one in Poland, are already operational and have thus begun to incorporate different technology profiles that will initially support the business functions of Santander Corporate & Investment Banking (SCIB)under the premise that technology, as Santander has explained, “is a strategic lever and Santander’s ability to create the best products and services for its customers increasingly depends on it.”
The profiles that are being incorporated into these hubs are specialized in areas such as Platforms and APIs (application programming interface), cloud (cloud), Big Data, network (networks), DevSecOps (development, security and operations teams), artificial intelligence (AI), software development (software development), enterprise architecture (enterprise architecture) and cybersecurity.
“Today, technology is a strategic lever for business and, in particular, in the banking sector, where the digitization of our products and services already represents an important part of our regular activity and the trend is growing. We are aware of the opportunity That this changing the role of technology means for business growth“, has pointed out the global head of Technology and Operations (T&O) of Santander, Dirk Marzluf.
Specific recruitment of IT profiles
According to Santander, the growing demand for technological profiles in the market, and in particular in financial institutions, has led it to propose a “specific recruitment” strategy for IT profiles, which materialized in 2020 with the Be Tech! with Santander, a recruitment plan for nearly 1,000 IT professionals in Spain and 3,000 worldwidewith the aim of turning Santander into the best open platform for financial services.
“Our new equipment in Malaga and Warsaw will be part of one of the largest transformation projects in the financial sector of the world. A project in constant growth thanks to a team driven by technology, open-minded and diverse, with a strong purpose behind it and working in an environment that will continue to evolve in the future”, commented Santander’s global head of Human Resources, Alexandra Brandao.
The entity’s ambition, he has assured, is to become the main employer of technological professionals in the sector. “That translates to how we want to attract the best professionals and help them grow and develop with us,” she said.
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In 2019, the group announced that it would allocate more than 20,000 million euros to digital transformation and technology in a period of four years. During this time, Santander has expanded and diversified its technological capabilities, which, among other advances, have allowed migrate 90% of your infrastructure to the cloud now.
Santander recently announced the launch of Gravity, a custom software developed internally with which it has digitized its banking core. The number of customers using digital channels has exceeded 50 million for the first time and the 56% of the bank’s sales are already made through the web or mobile.