Editor’s letter: Select opportunity for Santander

If Santander can tap into the growing mass-affluent segment Latin America is being used as a launch pad for a wider marketing effort around the world it really could be onto a winner.

The potential significance of
Santander’s mass-affluent initiative, Santander Select, really
cannot be underestimated (see Santander Mexico
gets selective).

If Santander can tap into the
growing mass-affluent segment – Latin America is being used as a
launch pad for a wider marketing effort around the world – it
really could be onto a winner.

Working with UK-based design
consultancy allen international, Santander has developed a new
range of branches designed to connect with its target audience.

Promoting the sub-brand Santander
Select, the bank believes that it can become a hub for networking,
where social events, seminars and third party luxury brand launches
can take place. If it can get close to the market share gains it
has set, Santander will also improve its bottom line.

Santander believes it can promote
the Select brand in a number of markets: in Europe, the UK, Spain
and Portugal are obvious targets to augment the Latin American
markets of Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Argentina.

It is a strategy which has paid
huge dividends for the mass-affluent market leader, HSBC.

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In fiscal 2010, HSBC Premier’s
availability had grown to 47 markets while customer numbers passed
4.4m. HSBC attracted over 980,000 net new Premier customers in the
last fiscal, of whom over 50% were new to the bank.

In Hong Kong for example, the HSBC
Premier customer base increased by 31% to more than 500,000
customers while in the rest of Asia-Pacific, Premier customer
numbers grew by one-third year-on-year.

In the Middle East, HSBC signed up
a net 35,000 Premier customers, with over one-half of the new
customers first time HSBC clients while in North America, the
growth rate was 37%, taking the Premier client base to over
700,000.

What will particularly interest
Santander were the figures for Latin America, where HSBC Premier
customers reached over 790,000 at the end of 2010.

Douglas Blakey

douglas.blakey@vrlfinancialnews.com