A failure in the systems compromises part of Santander Consumer’s operations in the United States

Santander Consumer USA, a subsidiary of the Spanish Banco Santander, suffered a failure last Friday, December 2, in the systems that it has been dragging and that has forced it to suspend part of its usual operations, as it has communicated to investors this Thursday, almost a week after the problem broke out. The entity, which is dedicated to financing the purchase of new and used vehicles, points out that “it is not possible to predict the final impact of this interruption in the provision of services.”

According to the explanations given by Santander Consumer USA Holdings through its investor relations website, on December 2 Santander Consumer USA identified a problem with a component that supported its data storage platform. “While all data in Santander Consumer’s central system remained intact, the problem caused transactional information to be temporarily unavailable to Santander Consumer’s customer service agents or its online customer portal,” the entity explains.

Due to the interruption in the provision of services, Santander Consumer “voluntarily ceased the activities of collection, seizure and disposal of vehicles, among other operations.” The entity chaired by Mahesh Aditya explains that despite the ruling it has been able to receive and process incoming payments and incoming customer service calls.

In recovery

“Service operations are in the process of being restored to pre-incident levels. It is not possible to predict the ultimate impact of this interruption in the provision of services or of any future interruption of Santander Consumer’s systems in the provision of services of retail motor vehicle installment contracts, installment loans and leases”, concludes the communication to investors.

Santander is present in the United States in the commercial banking, investment banking and automobile financing businesses. The financial company’s parent company, Santander Consumer Holdings USA, was listed on the Stock Market until last January, when it was excluded from the market through a takeover bid launched by Santander Holdings USA (SHUSA), the head of the group in the country, after authorization from the Federal Reserve. Although the subsidiary is no longer listed on the Stock Market, Santander has securitizations and fixed income issues on the market.

At the time of the delisting, SHUSA estimated its clients at around five million clients. More than one million are digital customers and 345,000 are loyal customers, who contract various products with the entity. According to Banco Santander’s quarterly report on third-quarter results, the United States contributed 1,489 million net profit attributable to the group. It is the second country with the highest contribution to profits after Brazil, according to these accounts, although with a decrease compared to the previous year. As of September 30, Santander had 14,705 employees and 484 offices in the United States. The total volume of assets in the country amounts to 208,000 million euros.