Santander BP lender sees many benefits in change of its strategic shareholder

"We see many benefits in this change, primarily for our customers. Once the transaction is completed, we will join a stable and successful financial group in Central and Eastern Europe. The Erste Group knows and understands the realities of our region very well, and like us, it focuses on building long-term relationships and providing the best customer experience," CEO Gajewski told the conference.

"I would like to emphasise that the change of shareholder has no impact on our current business activities. We are continuing our strategy with the same management team (...)," he added.

Santander BP's CEO said that it was too early to talk about changing the bank's name and logo.

At the beginning of May, Erste Group signed an agreement to purchase a 49 percent stake in Santander Bank Polska and 50 percent of shares in its mutual funds unit, Santander TFI, for a total of EUR 7 billion. Erste expects the acquisition to be completed by the end of 2025.

In connection with the planned sale of Santander Bank Polska shares, it became necessary to reorganise the entire operations of Banco Santander in Poland, including a change in the shareholding structure of Santander Consumer Bank.

Hence, a preliminary agreement was signed with Santander Consumer Finance, based in Spain, for the sale of 60 percent of Santander Consumer Bank shares. The sale requires the consent of Poland's financial watchdog KNF.

In the second quarter of 2025, the Santander BP group reclassified the activities of the Santander Consumer group as discontinued operations. In connection with this transaction, the result on discontinued operations in the second quarter was affected by a deferred income tax liability.

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