BANCO Santander and Bank of Shanghai announced on April 10 the signing of a memorandum of understanding which sets out their strategic cooperation for the Belt Road initiative, with specific focus on Europe and Latin America.

As part of this initiative, Bank of Shanghai has the opportunity to support enterprises focused on globalising their business in the main areas of infrastructure construction, international production capacity and equipment manufacturing.

Under the terms of their agreement, Santander and Bank of Shanghai will jointly provide financial services to Chinese enterprises in their overseas investments in areas such as settlement and trade finance, corporate business, treasury and investment banking for all the business opportunities that arise within this initiative.

Antony Hung, regional head for Asia-Pacific, Santander Group, says: “Santander’s purpose is to help people and businesses prosper. I firmly believe that Santander, through its close cooperation with Bank of Shanghai, will make the most of the regional complementarity of both institutions and become a firm practitioner of the Belt and Road initiative”.

The two banks have already been cooperating closely. In 2013 Santander, at that time headed up by Emilio Botin, acquired an 8% stake in Bank of Shanghai put up for sale by HSBC. Emilio Botin died in 2014 and was succeeded as group chair by his daughter Ana Botin.

Meanwhile HSBC has appointed its Malaysian CEO Mukhtar Hussain to the newly-created position as head of the bank's Belt Road initiative for the Asia-Pacific region. Hussain, who first joined HSBC in 1982, will start in his new role on July 1, HSBC said in a statement.

In this new role, Hussain will spearhead key initiatives and relationships to grow HSBC’s Asian Belt Road business and drive collaboration across the bank’s global businesses and international footprint.

Photo: Paul Loius