Meta Platforms Earnings Preview: What to Watch in Q1 2026 Report<\/a><\/p>\nOn costs, Jos\u00e9 said the efficiency ratio improved to 42.8%, supported by revenue growth and costs declining 1% year-over-year in constant euros (or down 4% \u201cin real terms\u201d). He said retail and Openbank\u2014together representing about 75% of the cost base\u2014reduced costs by 3% while revenue grew 3%.<\/p>\n
Credit quality metrics, Jos\u00e9 said, remained solid across the group, though reported figures were impacted by Argentina. He said excluding Argentina, provisions declined 2% year-over-year. He added that cost of risk improved 2 basis points and the NPL ratio improved 5 basis points to 2.94%, with a stable coverage ratio.<\/p>\n
Business-line highlights: Retail, Openbank, CIB, Wealth, and Payments <\/p>\n
Management emphasized broad-based contributions from global businesses. Grisi said retail\u2019s underlying profit grew 9% year-over-year, driven by operational leverage, with costs down 5% and \u201cgood revenue growth\u201d across NII and fees. He also said cost of risk improved to 1.07% excluding Argentina.<\/p>\n
Openbank was presented as a key driver of scaling and funding optimization. Grisi said Openbank\u2019s U.S. digital bank gathered EUR 11 billion in deposits since launch, delivering about EUR 150 million in net funding cost savings annually. Later in Q&A, Jos\u00e9 said the group has merged Santander Consumer Finance with Openbank and described Openbank deposits as EUR 82 billion in Europe, while \u201cconsumer U.S., which is Openbank U.S.\u201d has about EUR 50\u201351 billion in deposits.<\/p>\n
In Corporate & Investment Banking (CIB), Grisi said profit was up 16% year-over-year and ROT reached 21%. Jos\u00e9 said CIB revenue rose 15% driven by client activity \u201cespecially in global markets.\u201d In response to questions about sustainability, Grisi linked growth to integrated coverage, an expectation of a 2026\u20132027 M&A cycle, and client hedging activity, while noting the outlook could change if macro conditions deteriorate significantly.<\/p>\n
Wealth profit rose 11%, according to Grisi, who said customer assets and liabilities grew 11% year-over-year. He also highlighted distribution fees up 7%, and in Q&A described insurance as a major long-term opportunity for the group.<\/p>\n
Payments, including Getnet, posted the largest growth rates. Grisi said revenue increased 20% and profit was up \u201cfour-fold\u201d year-over-year. Jos\u00e9 added Getnet\u2019s total payment volumes rose 11%.<\/p>\n
Capital, acquisitions, and key regional discussions in Q&A <\/p>\n
Jos\u00e9 said CET1 rose 90 basis points in the quarter to 14.4%. He cited 29 basis points of net organic capital generation, 20 basis points of benefit from risk transfer initiatives offsetting RWA growth, and a 39 basis point CET1 contribution from the Poland disposal \u201cnet of the EUR 3.2 billion additional share buyback.\u201d He also said regulatory and model updates added 20 basis points.<\/p>\n
On regulatory impacts, Jos\u00e9 told analysts that the 20 basis point \u201cregulatory tailwind\u201d came from an updated model for small SMEs in Spain and described it as structural. He said Santander expects additional model-related headwinds of \u201csomewhere between 10\u201320 basis points\u201d over the next three quarters, and reiterated confidence the bank will end the year above its 12.8% target.<\/p>\n
Management discussed the expected capital impact of the TSB and Webster acquisitions, which Jos\u00e9 estimated at around 210 basis points, \u201cphased across the second and the third quarter.\u201d Grisi said Santander is focused on integrating TSB and Webster and does not plan any \u201csignificant inorganic transaction\u201d for the next two years. On timing, Grisi said TSB had been authorized and Santander would enter a Part VII process, with \u201cnumbers\u201d coming in the second quarter, while Webster was \u201cfor sure in the second half of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Argentina, Grisi said the group has stopped consumer lending due to very high real rates and is focusing on corporate lending linked to dollars. He said Argentina\u2019s cost of risk reached 9.77% and Santander expects it to normalize to around 7% as conditions improve.<\/p>\n
In Brazil, Grisi said the loan book is about 10% of the group total and cited expectations for 2026 GDP growth around 1.5%, a resilient labor market, and the start of an easing cycle in March 2026. He said Santander assumes Selic ends 2026 around 13% and noted that every 100 basis points in Selic improves NII by about EUR 60 million. He also said cost of risk in Brazil was around 4.1%, lifted by \u201csome single names,\u201d but expected to be stable for the rest of the year.<\/p>\n
In the U.K., Grisi attributed cost reductions to \u201cOne Transformation,\u201d including simplification and automation, and said the trend should continue even ahead of TSB. On the motor finance issue, he said Santander booked an additional EUR 207 million pre-tax provision in the quarter and said the stock provision stands at EUR 725 million (GBP 633 million), adding, \u201cWe believe we\u2019re done\u201d given current expectations. Jos\u00e9 also said the structural hedge in the U.K. was around GBP 101 billion with 2.5 years duration and yield of 3.0%, and that lengthening the hedge should contribute more meaningfully to NII in coming quarters as reinvestment yields are around 4%.<\/p>\n
Grisi closed by saying the group had a \u201cgreat start of the year\u201d and reiterated guidance, while maintaining Santander\u2019s longer-term \u201cNorth Star\u201d of delivering ROTE above 20% by 2028 through execution, capital discipline, and scaling global businesses.<\/p>\n
About Banco Santander (NYSE:SAN) <\/p>\n
Banco Santander, SA (NYSE: SAN) is a Spanish multinational banking group headquartered in Santander, Spain. Founded in 1857, the bank has grown from a regional institution into one of Europe’s largest banking groups, operating a diversified financial services platform that serves retail, small and medium-sized enterprises, and large corporate clients. Santander is publicly listed in Spain and maintains American Depositary Receipts on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SAN.<\/p>\n
The group’s core activities include retail and commercial banking\u2014offering deposit accounts, payment services, mortgages, personal and auto loans, and small business financing\u2014alongside corporate and investment banking services for larger institutional clients.<\/p>\n
The article “Banco Santander Q1 Earnings Call Highlights<\/a>” was originally published by MarketBeat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Banco Santander logo Banco Santander (NYSE:SAN) opened its first-quarter 2026 results presentation by highlighting that it is the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[144,8191,8193,8195,8194,691,1160,8192],"class_list":["post-13846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-banco-santander","tag-banco-santander","tag-basis-points","tag-ceo-hector-grisi","tag-efficiency-ratio","tag-global-businesses","tag-revenue-growth","tag-santander-consumer-finance","tag-santander-polska"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Banco](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2ca2b174d223fcdbcc1b0448ef8f1872.jpeg\")
Banco Santander logo <\/p>\n