Tag Archives: Banco Santander

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Elavon and Banco Santander Close Deal to Deliver Merchant Services in Spain

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By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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Elavon and Banco Santander Close Deal to Deliver Merchant Services in Spain


Joint Venture Delivers Santander’s Brand and Elavon’s Technology Innovation and Investments to Spanish Businesses

ATLANTA & MADRID–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Elavon, a leading global payments provider, and Banco Santander, an international financial institution operating in 10 major markets with more than 100 million clients serviced by 15,000 branches, today confirm the establishment of a joint venture (JV) relationship in Spain, originally announced and proposed for regulatory approval in October 2012. Elavon is a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp (NYS: USB) .

The agreement establishes the JV, Santander Elavon Merchant Services, 51% of which will belong to Elavon and the remaining 49% to Santander. Assuming responsibility for Santander’s existing merchant customers and leveraging the bank’s extensive branch network to source new business, the JV‘s specialized teams will provide service, support and innovative solutions informed by voice of the customer and designed to enable commerce for businesses of all sizes.

Juan Golmayo, named CEO of the JV, will lead the organization’s efforts and has over 20 years experience in the cards industry. Juan comes to the JV from Iberia Cards, a leading card issuer in Spain, owned by Iberia, the Spanish leading airline, Banco Popular, BBVA and Bankia.

The JV is positioned to build for success, together with the backing of Santander’s respected brand and Elavon’s award-winning International Processing Platform and IP Gateway, recognized as the Best Merchant Acquiring Initiative by the Cards & Payments Awards in 2012.

“Santander Elavon Merchant Services will deliver great benefits to business customers of all sizes across Spain, and Juan’s ability to deliver on this opportunity is proven in the marketplace,” said Simon Haslam, President of International Markets for Elavon. “From providing global accounts with a single source provider across their portfolio, to addressing the needs of small business customers, this JV leverages the best that both Santander and Elavon offer,” Haslam said.

The new JV extends an existing relationship between Elavon and Santander dating from 2003 when the companies launched foreign currency payment services for Spanish retailers. It also further strengthens alliance relationships between the two companies in the United Kingdom, Poland, Mexico and Puerto Rico.

“We have enjoyed working with Elavon since 2003 and have found

From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/12/elavon-and-banco-santander-close-deal-to-deliver-m/

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Easy and Critical Diversification for Your Portfolio

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By Selena Maranjian, The Motley Fool

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Exchange-traded funds offer a convenient way to invest in sectors or niches that interest you. If you’d like to add some international stocks to your portfolio, the iShares Core MSCI Total International Stock Index ETF  could save you a lot of trouble. Instead of trying to figure out which companies will perform best, you can use this ETF to invest in lots of them simultaneously.

The basics
ETFs often sport lower expense ratios than their mutual fund cousins. The iShares ETF‘s expense ratio — its annual fee — is a very low 0.16%, and it recently yielded 3.3%. The fund is fairly small, too, so if you’re thinking of buying, beware of possibly large spreads between its bid and ask prices. Consider using a limit order if you want to buy in.

This ETF is too new to have a sufficient track record to assess. But as it contains more than 3,000 of the world’s biggest companies, we can expect it to generally move in line with the overall world market, though not matching its returns exactly. As with most investments, of course, we can’t expect outstanding performances in every quarter or year. Investors with conviction need to wait for their holdings to deliver.

Why international companies?
It’s a smart idea to diversify your holdings not only by market size and industry, but also geographically. If the U.S. economy stalls or slides, other economies may still be performing well and could help offset losses in your portfolio. Many of the companies in this ETF are quite large and pay dividends. That should be welcome, as dividends can be quite powerful. Internationally reaped ones can be a little more complicated than domestic ones, though.

More than a handful of international companies had strong performances over the past year. australia-based Westpac Banking , for example, soared 54% — and still yields a fat 5.4%. It’s been hampered, though, by the slowdown in China, as China uses many commodities produced by australia. Some worry about a housing slowdown hurting the company, too.

U.K.-based alcoholic-beverage specialist Diageo , meanwhile, jumped 32%, as it invests more in China and introduces is Alexander & James e-commerce website. The company is financially strong and growing both its revenue and dividend, and aiming to turbocharge its growth via emerging markets.

Spain-based Banco Santander gained 12% and recently yielded 9.3% as well. It has been hurt by troubles in Europe, but the company actually does a lot of its business in Latin America, where it benefits from faster economic growth rates, such as Brazil‘s. It may be a while before all its operating regions are healthy, but while investors wait, they can collect a hefty payout — which, even if halved, would still be significant. Some value-oriented investors see it as undervalued as well.

Other companies didn’t do as well last year but could see …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

2 Banks to Look at Post-Cyprus

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By Alex Dumortier, CFA, The Motley Fool

SAN Chart

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On the back of yesterday’s losses, stocks are moderately higher this morning, with the S&P 500 and the narrower, price-weighted Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.45%% and 0.53%, respectively, at 10:15 a.m. EDT.

Investors still have an eye on Cyprus. Although the Southern European island state has a bailout in hand, the full ramifications for the eurozone are not yet known, and the situation is fluid — the Cypriot government announced only last night that banks, which were meant to reopen today, will remain shut until Thursday.

Crisis and opportunity
Yesterday, I encouraged investors clinging to asset allocation as the sole determinant of investment risk to throw out their risk framework and embrace a contrarian attitude. This morning, I’m going to give more examples of how to apply that attitude.

The Cypriot bailout has produced a vivid example of the risks associated with banks — for customers, investors, and creditors. A protracted bank holiday, customers lining up around the block to withdraw money from ATMs, and a massive levy on large bank depositors — these are unsettling thoughts even for U.S. investors, as they dredge up the fears we experienced at the worst of the financial crisis in the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009.

Cyprus‘ bailout debacle is the latest event to reinforce investors’ aversion to owning bank shares. Naturally, Southern European banks bear the greatest burden; just have a look at the performance of Spain‘s two largest banks, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria and Banco Santander , since March 15 — the Friday prior to the weekend during which Cyprus came up with its first failed bailout program:

SAN data by YCharts.

Both shares have woefully underperformed both the MSCI EAFE Index and Spain‘s IBEX 35 Index. That may be warranted — to an extent — as the ultimate impact of Cyprus is not yet clear. However, keep in mind that excessively depressed valuations can mitigate a lot of risk. Both banks trade at a discount to their book values and a relatively modest premium to tangible book values (roughly one-fifth). On an earnings basis, they trade on less than 9.5 times the estimate for the next 12 months’ earnings per share.

I’m not recommending that investors rush out and massively overweight their portfolios with these two banks. However, in a situation like this, these are precisely the type of stocks that contrarian, value-oriented stock-pickers should immediately gravitate to. Ultimately, you may decide they’re not worth buying, but they’re certainly worth a look.

With even large U.S. financials still trading at deep discounts to their historic norms, investors everywhere are wondering if this is the new normal or if finance stocks are a screaming buy today. The answer depends on the company, so to help you figure out whether JPMorgan is a buy today, I invite you to read our premium research report on the company today. Click here …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

2-Minute Primer: Why Cyprus Is Driving the Market

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By Alex Dumortier, CFA, The Motley Fool

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Following last week’s repeated stock market highs, the tone at the start this week is decidedly bearish, with unsettling news out of the eurozone rattling markets worldwide. U.S. stocks opened lower this morning, with the S&P 500 and the narrower, price-weighted Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.62% and 0.31%, respectively, as of 10:05 a.m. EDT.

This week
This week will see the outcome of the Fed’s regular FOMC meeting on Wednesday. Don’t expect any changes to rates or the bond-buying program, but investors will be carefully parsing the Fed’s language for clues on the “flight path.” On the same day, we’ll have news that actually relates to corporate fundamentals, as Oracle and FedEx both report earnings.

The Cyprus situation in three questions
1. What happened in Cyprus?
Early on Saturday, Cyprus, which sits off the coast of Greece, agreed to a controversial bailout plan of its banks with international lenders, including the European Union. The plan is unusual because it effectively forces all bank depositors to take a haircut (6.75% on accounts with less than 100,000 euros and 9.9% on accounts above that threshold; I write “effectively” because, nominally, it is being packaged as a tax). Importantly, according to the Financial Times, “the depositor levy was demanded by a German-led group of creditor countries to bring down the bailout’s price tag from 17 billion euros.”


Cyprus is, in itself, insignificant in economic terms. However, the “Cypriot example” is a stark reminder that the eurozone crisis writ large is alive and well. Germany is making perfectly clear that it won’t pick up the full tab for its Southern European partners. Spaniards and Italians must now be wondering whether their deposits are entirely safe, given the debt burden weighing on their banking system and their sovereign, respectively. Last year’s pledge from European Central Bank president Mario Draghi to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro was a powerful salve for the crisis, but its main effect was improving investor sentiment — which can change quickly.

3. What is the impact?
European stock markets are in the red today, with Italy and, particularly, Spain suffering the heaviest losses. Spain‘s banking system has yet to fully address the legacy of the property boom and crash (take a look at Banco Santander‘s share price this morning). Wall Street is also down, and big banks are especially sensitive to this type of macroeconomic headline risk: Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley are all underperforming the broad market today.

If you’re finally ready to invest based on fundamentals, long-term value-creation, and competitive advantage, The Motley Fool’s chief investment officer has selected his No. 1 stock for this year. Find out which stock it is in the brand-new free report “The Motley Fool’s Top Stock for 2013.” Just click here to access the report and …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

News, Politics, Government

Q4 profit up to $543 million for Spain's Santander

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Spain’s Banco Santander says it made a net profit of €401 million ($543 million) for 2012, up from €47 million for the same period a year earlier, but saw its annual total drop by almost 60 percent.

The bank said Thursday its gross income for the period was €10.35 billion, down from €10.63 billion in 2011.

Banco Santander, S.A. said its 2012 net profit fell by 59 percent to €2.12 billion. Over the year it made provisions of €18.8 billion against an economic downturn and toxic real estate loans.

Its non-performing loan ratio last year rose 0.65 percentage points to 4.54 percent. For Spain, it was up 1.25 percentage points to 6.74 percent,

Santander shares Thursday were down 1.56 percent at €6.30 in early trading.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News