Santander Group raises financial inclusion target to 15 million people by 2025

• The number of individuals and SMEs empowered by the Group to access financial services, financing and financial education exceeded the original target of 10 million by 18%.

• According to the European Health Survey, 7.7 million people in Poland declare that they have limited ability to perform activities. According to the Central Statistical Office (GUS), people with disabilities make up almost 13% of the Polish population and it is for them that Santander Bank Polska makes alterations to its branches, removing architectural and communication barriers.

• Santander Bank Polska has a strong social commitment to the development of financial education among the youngest. The messages of the Finansiaki programme, in which the bank helps parents and teachers to introduce children to the world of finance, benefited more than 460,000 people last year.

Santander Group’s financial inclusion initiatives and measures within its Responsible banking strategy have empowered 11.8 million people and SMEs since 2019 (5.5 million in 2022). Those measures align directly with the bank’s commitment to contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

In 2019, Santander set a target to financially empower 10 million people by 2025. Thanks to its initiatives on access to financial services, financing and financial education in the countries where it operates, it has exceeded that target by 18%, three years early. As a result, it has announced a new target to financially empower 15 million people by 2025.

Santander Group’s main objective is to guarantee people’s access to the financial system and preventing anyone from being forced to exit it.

Access to financial services: Measures to guarantee underprivileged communities can get cash at remote branches and through partnerships with public and private entities that expand the footprint of Santander Group; to help people carry out basic digital banking transactions; and to help senior citizens and other vulnerable groups understand the basic products they can obtain.

Santander Bank Polska is constantly striving to improve the accessibility of its services and products as well as its service locations for all customers. It arranges its branches in such a way as to increase their accessibility, thus creating 'barrier-free branches’. Last year, the bank launched another flagship „barrier-free branch”. The branch in Warsaw is equipped with, among other things, tactile paths, a typhlographic map (a plan of the branch with reliefs reflecting objects in the surroundings and descriptions in Braille) or the TOTUPOINT navigation and information system. These solutions facilitate spatial orientation and enhance the level of safety for visually impaired people. Similar branches also exist in Gorzów Wielkopolski, Wrocław, Bolesławiec and Kłodzko.

Financing: Santander runs microfinance programmes to promote social mobility and help low-income and underbanked entrepreneurs set up and grow businesses. In 2022 alone, it supported 1.6 million micro-entrepreneurs, 70% of whom were women. It runs debt relief programmes for customers in financial difficulty, who can defer payments or extend lines of credit. Its products and services also enable low-income households to find housing and meet other basic financial needs.

Financial education: Santander has been promoting financial education programmes in all its core markets for over 10 years to boost vulnerable groups’ understanding of financial concepts and help them make informed decisions.

In Poland, Santander’s social commitment in the aspect of financial education is implemented, among others, through its proprietary project called 'Finansiaki’, in which the bank provides parents and teachers with educational materials to support them in teaching their children about saving money and the basics of entrepreneurship. Among other things, the bank has created lesson plans for schools, audiobooks, tutorials or even quizzes and board games that can be downloaded from the programme’s website. This is a topic that is underdeveloped at the stage of basic school education, and the need to explore the subject in greater depth is also pointed out by the Financial Ombudsman in Poland. Last year, more than 460,000 people across Poland benefited from the programme’s content.

In 2022 alone, Santander helped empower a million people through access initiatives (up 14% year on year); over 1.8 million people through tailored financing for individuals and SMEs struggling to get funding or in vulnerable economic circumstances (up 9% year on year); and 2.7 million people bolster their understanding of finance (up 52% year on year).