Banco Santander has channeled 3,401 proposals from its professionals through the global initiative "Santander Innovation Challenge," a program designed to enhance internal talent and innovation through solutions supported by artificial intelligence (AI), data, and automation.
The purpose of this challenge is to locate ideas that contribute to optimizing products, services, and processes in various areas of the group. Of all the proposals received, 2,370 were submitted in full, and after several rounds of evaluation, 141 moved on to the semifinal phase and 48 reached the final round.
Finally, the financial entity has communicated that 12 projects have been selected to advance to a new stage of definition and development.
The chosen initiatives come from teams located in different geographies and business lines of Santander, such as Openbank, Santander Corporate & Investment Banking (SCIB), Getnet, Commercial Banking, Global Cards, Retail, and Wealth Management & Insurance.
These projects focus both on new business avenues and on improving operational efficiency, and propose digital solutions applied to fields such as risk management, payments, data connectivity, cash flow optimization for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and artificial intelligence-powered assistants.
Among the 12 selected projects are "AI Squad," "ALEX - SCIB CRM AI Agent," "CashFlow Autopilot for SMEs," "CD Advisor," "Ecosystem Risk Manager," "Fynn by Santander," "GetElevate," "Proprietary Data Connectivity," "Santander ePay," "Santander Start," "Super Santander BaaS," and "Wealth AI Assistant."
AI Assistants and Solutions for SMEs
Among the finalist proposals stands out "Fynn by Santander," which proposes a virtual assistant for SMEs capable of analyzing their financial data, anticipating liquidity needs, and offering recommendations aimed at supporting the management of their businesses.
Likewise, "AI Squad" proposes a team of specialized artificial intelligence agents that would collaborate in the design of new products and services. These agents would provide business analysis, customer experience, risks, and regulatory compliance with the aim of accelerating innovation processes, as specified by the bank chaired by Ana Botín.
The initiatives have been developed by teams from Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Chile, the United States, and different global locations of the Group, and reflect, according to Santander, the ability of its professionals to identify concrete use cases based on their direct knowledge of the business, the clients, and the internal processes.
From now on, the 12 winning teams will collaborate in the next phase with global areas and business sponsors to specify the scope of the solutions and define the user profiles they will target.
In addition, they will need to specify the data and control requirements for each initiative, set the metrics that will be used to evaluate their success, and establish the main milestones necessary to advance towards their possible implementation.