Santander presents Life, a new digital line of consumer products
December 20, 2017, Santiago, Banco Santander Chile (NYSE: BSAC, SSE: Bsantander) announces the launching of Santander Life, our new business model for the mass consumer market. This unprecedented initiative represents a new way of relating to the community and customers through a new generation of digital products designed for the mass consumer market that rewards positive credit behavior.
Since 2012, Santander Chile's retail loan growth strategy has been mainly focused on the high end of the consumer market as economic growth decelerated. This resulted in a shift in the loan mix, increasing the proportion of loans to higher income individuals, with the Santander Banefe segment (lower income individuals) being absorbed into the Bank and the closing of more than 100 branches.
This shift back into the mass consumer market responds to two motives. First of all, the improving economic outlook in Chile and second, and most importantly, the technological innovations the Bank has introduced that will now permit it to acquire new clients through a platform that is 100% digital.
The launch of the Life model is the product of the Bank's technological developments over the last four years. The first innovation was NEO CRM, our industry leading client relationship management system. The Bank has continued to innovate in 2017, concentrating on digital banking and especially through our APP. In the October of this year, we then launched our Digital Onboarding platform, whereby non-clients can become clients through the APP or website in a few minutes. The Bank's information systems are now linked to various public databases and, therefore, with a few simple questions the Bank can check a new client's identity, credit history and income level simply using Touch ID technology on a smartphone. The only requirements for application is a monthly disposable income greater than Ch$400,000, and over 6 months of employment history. These technological developments help to reduce the costs of opening a new account and also assure quick and trustworthy verification of the risk associated with a potential client.
This now leads to the launching of Santander Life. New clients have the option of a Life Current Account plan, Life Credit Card and Life Personal Credit all of which can be acquired digitally with no human interaction. For opening one of these products a client will automatically receive Ch$10,000 cash back on their first purchase and a 5% discount on all supermarket purchases with the Life Credit Card, forever after.
The most innovative aspect of Santander Life is the Meritolife Program, the first program in Chile in which a bank rewards clients for positive behavior. As customers meet their financial obligations on time, they accumulate "Merits" that allow them to access exclusive recognitions such as; more interest-free installments, discounts on interest rates, as well as flexibility for the payment of credit installments, among other benefits.
To accumulate these merits, the Meritolife digital program keeps a record of payment history. For example, for paying the monthly total of the Life credit card on time, 500 merits are delivered. These accumulate and, clients can reach different levels. Each level comes with a new benefit for clients. For example, once a client passes to the second level they can postpone purchases made with their Life Credit Card in three to six interest-free installments. By Level 5 a client will have access to consumer loans with a 40% discount on their initial interest rate. These merits are not lost when used. Customers only lose their merits only when they stop paying their products on time or default. The accumulated merits and everything related to products associated with Life, can be viewed in the Meritolife section through any mobile device, in the Santander App.
"These are exciting times in Santander Chile as we begin to roll out a series of new products leveraged on our strong digital platforms. With Santander Life we want to reward positive financial behavior with tangible benefits for clients," explains Miguel Mata, deputy general manager of Banco Santander.
For more detail please see the links and video below:
https://www.santander.cl/planes/santander-life.asp
Youtube (Spanish)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPuhN7aD6Vo&feature=youtu.be
(English)
http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/IROL/71/71614/LIFE%20%20ENG.mp4
Banco Santander Chile is the largest Bank in Chile in terms of assets and loans. As of September 30, 2017, we had total assets of Ch$35,152,715 million (U.S.$54,999 million), outstanding loans, net of allowances for loan losses of Ch$26,952,564 million (U.S.$42,169 million), total deposits of Ch$19,862,372 million (U.S.$31,076 million) and equity of Ch$3,018,381 million (U.S.$4,722 million). Our headquarters are located in Santiago and we operate in every major region of Chile. Our long-term credit risk rating were Aa3 by Moody's, A Fitch and A Standard & Poor's.