Openbank, Santander’s digital-native subsidiary, opened its first U.S. physical location last week in Miami.
It’s the third location worldwide for the digital bank, which launched in Europe in 2017 and in the U.S. in October.
Openbank has attracted more than 100,000 U.S. customers and over $4 billion in deposits since launching stateside.
“The new Openbank location is another opportunity to bridge our digital and in-person experience to deliver a truly differentiated offering,” said Openbank US CEO Swati Bhatia in a prepared statement. Bhatia heads up retail banking and transformation at Santander.
“Our vision for building a digital bank with branches is becoming a reality, and I’m excited that customers in Miami will be among the first to experience Openbank in-person,” she said.
By bringing Openbank into the physical realm, the bank said it’s aiming to “blend digital convenience with personalized service in its retail spaces,” thus enabling staffers to “dedicate more time to customer guidance.”
Santander’s Openbank push comes as it “refines” its own branch footprint and retail presence. The Spanish bank is closing 18 of its 400 U.S. locations by August, entirely in the northeast.
The closure plan follows 95 branch closures in the U.K., announced in March and set to take place in June. A Santander spokesperson attributed the U.K. closures to “a rapid movement of customers choosing to do their banking digitally,” according to the BBC.
With its new Openbank location, Santander is deepening its roots in Miami, home to Banco Santander International headquarters. Openbank is just a stone’s throw from one of Santander’s few U.S. Work Cafes, hybrid locations that offer banking services in a co-working-slash-café space.
“We picked Miami to be the first market to build an Openbank branch because Miami is a very special city with a lot of cultural history and a lot of financial strength,” Bhatia told the South Florida Business Journal last week. “It's the No. 6 MSA by population, and No. 11 in deposits, so it's a very rich market and a market where our brand has a very strong presence already.”
