Awards for Excellence 2017
The best bank transformation of the year award goes to Santander Brasil.
Mario Leao, head of the bank’s investment banking division, dates the start of the bank’s turnaround to September 2015 – the date when Sergio Rial became CEO. And 2016 saw the results of changes in leadership, risk management and digital innovation.
The bank is on a charge. Between the first quarters of 2016 and 2017, the bank increased its customers by half-a-million to 3.7 million, increased earned fees by 24.3%, revenues by 16.7%, net income by 37.3% and lowered non-performing loans by 40 basis points to 2.9%. The digital transformation helped lower the bank’s efficiency ratio to 44.9% from 50.3% in just one year – and return on equity leapt to 15.9% from 12.6%.
The bank’s competitors only have words of admiration for Rial. They note the “open channel he enjoys from Madrid” and comment on the fact that “there is no politics at play at the bank – Rial seems intent to make a name for himself, and there doesn’t seem to be anything stopping him.”