Banco Santander already has Work Café, its most innovative office model, in all the countries where it operates. The last branch of Work Café opened was on October 26 in Brooklyn, New York. With it, Santander has already taken this office model to all the main geographies of the group, offering clients and non-clients a coworking space and cafeteria, in addition to the bank’s entire range of products and services.
The Work Café model was born in Chile in 2017 and since then it has opened more than 80 around the world and in recent months it has accelerated its digital presence with several initiatives to offer entrepreneurs and companies a space where, in addition to operating with the bank They can also meet with their clients, suppliers, etc., as if it were a workplace, which complements the services offered by the traditional branches of the bank.
With the opening of the first Work Café USA, the entity chaired by Ana Botín has already achieved a presence with this model, which is increasingly gaining prominence in the group. In fact, Santander, like the rest of the financial institutions, are changing the concept of bank branches with the closure of thousands of branches, to focus only on a few with much larger spaces, where all types of customers can be served with specialized managers, and in which there are cafeterias and spaces for customers to meet with their customers as well.
Thus, in addition to banking services and access to a series of specialists, Work Café also includes fully equipped private meeting rooms and a large coworking space, with high-speed Wi-Fi and ATMs available 24 hours a day. The bank explains that “this new office model represents another milestone in Banco Santander’s ambitious growth and transformation strategy.”
The growth of the Work Café model is part of the new reality that the financial sector is experiencing worldwide, which is forcing banks to accelerate their adaptation and business transformation processes, evolving towards an operating and distribution model that allows offering different customer experiences in the digital age, while ensuring efficiency and cost control, according to the bank and experts.
This implies simplifying the product portfolio, redesigning processes and digitizing operations, and adapting the service model in the branches to new customer demands.
Santander already has 11 offices of the Work Café model in Spain. Of these, six are located in Madrid, one in Barcelona, another in Valladolid and others in Bilbao, Valencia and Malaga. But the goal is to continue opening more stores throughout Spain.
So far this year Santander has closed some 400 traditional branches, but its goal is to close many more. In addition, it has an ERE in place, whose number of affected will not be known until next Friday.
– .
