The bank achieved its best efficiency ratio in 15 years, thanks to effective cost control.

Ana Botín, the executive chair of Banco Santander, expressed confidence in the bank's ability to enhance profitability in 2025, attributing this to its scale, diversification, and transformation efforts.

Banco Santander reported an impressive attributable profit of 12.574 billion euros for 2024, reflecting a 14% increase from the previous year, driven by robust revenue growth and the addition of eight million new customers, bringing the total to 173 million.

These results not only set records in interest margin, commission revenues, total revenues, and profit but also allowed the bank to exceed all its objectives for the year.

Looking ahead to 2025, Santander anticipates stable revenues of approximately 62 billion euros, with ongoing growth in profitability and a continued reduction in costs.

The bank noted increased customer activity and strong margin management, which contributed to its overall profitability.

By the end of the year, the bank's return on tangible equity (RoTE) stood at 16.3%, with earnings per share increasing by 18% to 0.77 euros.

In a strategic move, Santander announced plans for a substantial 10 billion euro share buyback program over the next two years, in addition to a new buyback program worth 1.6 billion euros related to last year's profits.

Following the profit announcement, Santander's shares experienced a significant rise of 7.69%, reaching 5.37 euros by mid-morning.

Despite the positive financial results, the bank reported a slight increase in its non-performing loan (NPL) ratio, which rose by 9 basis points to 3.05%.

Santander's loans grew by 1% to 1.02 trillion euros, maintaining a global non-performing loan ratio of 3.05%.

As one of the largest banks globally, Santander operates across Europe and America, employing 207,000 workers and serving 3.5 million shareholders.