Over the past weekend, the branch network of IBOS member Bank Zachodni WBK, as well as its customer service and banking channels and its web page and ATMs, changed to the Santander brand.
The Polish affiliate of Santander is the third bank in Poland, with a market share of approximately 12%.
In 2013, the retail network of Bank Zachodni WBK incorporated the Santander Group as part of its brand and started offering Santander products and services to its corporate and private banking clients so they would become familiarized with the brand.
Santander Bank Polska leads the digital transformation of the banking sector in Poland. It is part of the Santander One Pay FX project, the service that makes international transfers fast and agile using blockchain-based technology that Santander launched last April in four of its main markets.
Banco Santander bought BZ WBK from Allied Irish Bank in 2011 and subsequently bought the Polish business of KBC (2013) and Deutsche Bank (2017), whose 115 branches will convert to the Santander brand before the end of the year once the technological integration is completed. These acquisitions required investment of €4.2 billion for 70% of an entity that now has market capitalisation of €8.6 billion. Santander Bank Polska has 11,500 employees and 565 branches that serve 6.5 million customers.
Read the full press release via Santander here.
