{"id":81463,"date":"2026-09-06T06:09:41","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T06:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/81463\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T06:09:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T06:09:41","slug":"webster-bank-is-now-part-of-banco-santander-what-does-12-2-billion-deal-mean-for-connecticut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/81463\/","title":{"rendered":"Webster Bank is now part of Banco Santander. What does $12.2 billion deal mean for Connecticut?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> Webster Bank, the largest bank headquartered in Connecticut, has been acquired by Banco Santander for about $12.2 billion. Webster’s branches includes this one at 1120 Main St., in Newington, Conn. (File photo\/Hearst Connecticut Media) <\/p>\n

The largest transaction in the history of Connecticut banking is now a done deal.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Madrid-based\u00a0Banco Santander announced Thursday the completion of its $12.2 billion acquisition of Stamford-headquartered Webster Bank<\/a>. As a result, Santander’s U.S. business has added Webster’s approximately 3.5 million customers to its own contingent of about 4.5 million. But customers’ daily banking experiences will not change immediately, while Webster’s main corporate offices will stay put, according to the two companies.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

“It’s an incredibly complimentary transaction,” John\u00a0Ciulla, who formerly served as Webster’s CEO and is now CEO of Santander Bank NA, into which Webster’s businesses have been integrated, said in a video-conference interview this week. “You take a decidedly commercially focused regional bank in Webster, and you think about Santander’s strength as a consumer lender, with a good footprint as a retail bank as well, and then there’s this incredible global network where you’ve got more capital and better technology to deliver. From the Webster perspective, it allows us to keep doing what we are doing at a bigger scale, with more tools to arm our customer-facing retail and commercial bankers with.”\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Through the acquisition, Santander now presides over a combined U.S. balance sheet of approximately $327 billion in assets, $185 billion in loans and $172 billion in deposits, based on data from the end of last year.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

In Connecticut,\u00a0Santander has added more than $40 billion in deposits and 95 branches. In total, Webster has about 200 branches, with its other locations in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. Webster’s in-state deposits and branch counts rank highest among Connecticut-based banks and second overall in both categories. \u00a0 <\/p>\n

Santander has 13 branches in Connecticut, with in-state deposits of about $1.9 billion, reflecting a presence in the Nutmeg State that goes back to its acquisition of Sovereign Bank in 2009. It has much larger branch networks in Massachusetts and New York, while it also has branches in Delaware, Florida, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

“From the perspective of our commitment and investment appetite in the U.S., this is an extremely significant and strategic investment for us, that rounds out a stable of businesses that we operate in the United States, and positions us as a significantly better competitor, stronger competitor, and one of the leading retail and commercial banks in the United States, with a deep presence in the northeast,”\u00a0Christiana Riley, CEO of Santander US, whose units include Santander Bank, said during the same interview that included Ciulla. \u00a0 <\/p>\n

Santander is not planning any Webster branch closings, while the Webster brand will remain for the foreseeable future, according to company officials.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

“The Webster brand stays in place. The\u00a0Santander brand stays in place,” Ciulla said. “And then we’ve got a very detailed and purposeful plan, over a reasonable period of time, to bring everyone on to one system. And we’ll make sure that when that happens, we’re prepared to minimize any customer disruption.”\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Webster has a long history of deal-making, with its other transactions including the completion in 2022 of a merger worth approximately $10.3 billion<\/a> with Pearl River, New York-based Sterling National Bank. As a result of that transaction, Webster moved its headquarters from Waterbury to Stamford, while keeping its offices in Waterbury. Webster was founded in Waterbury in 1935.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Among acquisitions of Connecticut-based banks, the record was previously set when Buffalo, New York-headquartered M&T Bank bought Bridgeport-based People’s United Bank for $8.3 billion in 2022<\/a>. Today, M&T ranks first for branches and third in deposits in Connecticut.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Problems emanating from the conversion in September 2022 of People’s United accounts to\u00a0M&T accounts triggered a wave of customer complaints, as well as outcry from a number of elected officials. Customer sentiment about M&T has improved significantly since then, while state agencies have dealt with relatively low caseloads for other banks. In the 2025-26 fiscal year, the state attorney general’s office received 28 complaints about Bank of America, which has the most deposits in the state; 11 about M&T; eight about Webster; and seven about Santander.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

“We will be watching this conversion closely and expect that consumers will continue to receive prompt, reliable service,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said of the\u00a0Webster-Santander deal in a written statement.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

State Rep. Tom\u00a0Delnicki, R-South Windsor, the ranking House member of the General Assembly’s Banking Committee, told CT Insider that he was confident in Santander’s\u00a0management of the acquisition. South Windsor is one of several municipalities in the Hartford area where both Webster and Santander have a branch. <\/p>\n

“The Webster-Sterling merger went smoothly, and my expectation is that the\u00a0Webster-Santander deal will go smoothly as well,” Delnicki said. “I think it’s being done in a judicious fashion, and I think that they’ve done their homework.”\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Regulators that approved the acquisition include Connecticut’s banking commissioner, the Federal Reserve System’s Board of Governors, the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the European Central Bank.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

What’s next for Webster employees <\/p>\n

Santander US has more than 10,000 employees, and it will gain a Webster workforce of about 4,500. In Connecticut, there are approximately 1,800 Webster employees and about 70 Santander employees.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Webster’s main offices at 200 Elm St., in downtown Stamford<\/a>, will serve as a “core” corporate location for\u00a0Santander, alongside its corporate offices in Boston, New York City, Miami and Dallas, according to\u00a0Santander officials. <\/p>\n

“Staying here in Stamford is a good signal to the marketplace, as well as just the practical way to best execute and run the bank,” said\u00a0Ciulla, who is based in Stamford. “We’ve got really senior and strong people in all of those hub sites, and it allows us to continue to focus and not neglect any of the core markets that we serve.”\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Webster and\u00a0Santander officials did not rule out the possibility of layoffs, but they indicated that they wanted to limit any job cuts. \u00a0 <\/p>\n

“Where will the efficiencies in a transaction like this come from? It’s not in branch closures, and it’s not in staff who are serving our customers, day in and day out, to the highest-quality standard,” said Riley, who is based in the New York office, but also spends time at\u00a0Santander’s other hubs in the U.S. “It would be disingenuous to tell you that there won’t be staff reductions in some of the common areas of back-office support. We have to recognize that with a globally scaled organization like Santander that is bringing common platforms to bear and has an opportunity to do things at a higher volume, and therefore at a higher scale, we want to bring some of that to the benefit of both organizations.”\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Ciulla gave a similar assessment.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

“There will be some duplicative roles in the back office, and both banks have a good history of treating people fairly if we need to eliminate positions over time for efficiency,” he said. “But that’s not the overarching rationale for the transaction.” <\/p>\n

Worldwide,\u00a0Santander operates with more than 185,000 employees, serving about 182 million customers and overseeing assets of more than $2 trillion, according to its website<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Sign up for the Connecticut Briefing from CT Insider. Get the biggest headlines of the day from our network of journalists around the state.<\/a> <\/p>\n

This article originally published at Webster Bank is now part of Banco Santander. What does $12.2 billion deal mean for Connecticut?<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Webster Bank, the largest bank headquartered in Connecticut, has been acquired by Banco Santander for about $12.2 billion.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[144,284,26855,655],"class_list":["post-81463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-banco-santander","tag-banco-santander","tag-santander","tag-webster","tag-webster-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81463","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=81463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}