World's Most Innovative Bank Title Goes to Santander, According to The Banker Magazine
**Santander Embraces the Future with Groundbreaking Cloud-Native Core Banking Platform**
In a significant stride towards digital transformation, Banco Santander, one of the world's leading banks, has introduced Gravity - a cutting-edge, home-grown core banking platform designed specifically for cloud environments. The platform, which has been hailed as a game-changer, is set to revolutionise Santander's core banking operations by replacing traditional mainframe systems with a modern, agile, and efficient software architecture.
Gravity, Santander's proprietary digital banking platform, is built to fully digitalise its core banking operations, offering a myriad of benefits that range from enhanced customer experience to operational efficiency. The platform, which supports both private and public cloud deployments, including Google Cloud, delivers faster and easier access to banking data, enabling real-time analytics and better customer service.
One of the key features of Gravity is its cloud-native architecture, which allows for parallel processing, or "Dual Run." This means that workloads can be run simultaneously on both legacy mainframe systems and the cloud, ensuring a smooth migration process without service interruptions. Gravity processes huge transaction volumes efficiently, handling over 4.3 billion transactions annually in Spain, with peaks of 33,000 transactions per second.
The platform's end-to-end automation and operational efficiency have contributed to cost savings and sustainability, achieving a 70% reduction in IT energy consumption. Gravity also drastically reduces time-to-market for new software functionalities from weeks to mere hours, facilitating rapid deployment and frequent app updates.
With Gravity, Santander has become the first major established bank in the Western world to operate its core banking system 100% in the cloud, achieving technology levels comparable to digital-native companies. This transition has already been successfully completed in several businesses in the UK and Chile without any service interruption, and is also well advanced in Brazil.
Google Cloud announced in October 2022 that it would be commercializing a service to help other companies transition from mainframe to cloud called Dual Run, which was developed on top of Santander's Gravity software. The Innovation in Digital Banking Awards, organized by The Banker, recognised Santander as the Most Innovative Bank in the world on September 1, 2023, due to the success of Gravity.
Santander's One Transformation project aims to bring all 164 million customers onto a common operating model supported by cutting-edge technology like Gravity. The transition of Santander's core banking digital journey started in 2022 and will be completed between the end of 2024 and the first half of 2025.
As Santander continues to implement Gravity worldwide, customers can look forward to a significantly enhanced banking experience, with improved products, services, and overall satisfaction. The platform will also bring significant efficiencies through cutting-edge end-to-end automation, positioning Santander as a technology leader among traditional banks.
Gravity, the digital banking platform developed by Santander, is revolutionizing the bank's core business operations by fully digitalizing them, offering benefits that range from improving customer experience to increasing operational efficiency. This technology, which leverages cloud-native architecture and supports both private and public cloud deployments, enables real-time analytics and better customer service.
With Gravity, Santander has achieved a significant milestone by becoming the first major established bank in the Western world to operate its core banking system 100% in the cloud, positioning itself as a technology leader among traditional banks, and offering a future-ready finance business.
