Banco Santander, S.A.

Banco Santander, S.A. is a Spanish multinational bank headquartered near Madrid, one of the largest banks in the eurozone by market capitalization. It traces its origins to 1857, when it was founded in the northern Spanish port city of Santander to finance trade with Latin America, and it grew over the following century and a half into a global retail and commercial bank. Santander expanded heavily through acquisition from the 1990s onward, building large retail banking operations across Spain, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico and other Latin American markets, and it operates a large consumer finance and auto lending business in the United States and Europe under the Santander Consumer brand. The bank remains controlled by the Botin family, which has held senior leadership roles across several generations.