Santander Consumer Finance begins operations in Greece

Santander Consumer Finance, Europe’s consumer finance leader, has begun operations in Greece after reaching an agreement with the Syngelidis Group to offer financing services to its dealerships and customers.

The Syngelidis Group, one of Greece’s largest car importers, has been active in the automotive industry since 1970. Its network of over 80 dealerships, the widest in the country, imports and sells Peugeot, Citroën and DS.

The agreement brings Santander Consumer Finance to a new market, strengthening its leadership in auto finance in Europe, where it already operates in 16 countries (Austria, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Switzerland) at more than 130,000 dealers and retailers.

Eleni Chronea, Santander Consumer Finance business head in Greece, says: “The agreement with Syngelidis Group is a great honour and a source of pride for the Santander Consumer team, as a trusted financial partner for a leading automotive group in Greece. It has allowed us to enter a market where we were not present and, thus, strengthen our leadership in Europe.”

Pol Syngelidis, chairman and managing director of Syngelidis Group, adds: "We are very excited to have a partner like Santander Consumer Finance, a leader in auto finance, who will provide us with a lot of support to face the current challenges in the industry and continue to successfully develop our business".

Santander Consumer Finance’s operations are headquartered on Kiffissias Avenue in Athens. Its official presentation to Syngelidis Group dealers and first financing operation in Greece took place last March.

Santander Consumer Finance (SCF) is a leading consumer finance company present in 15 European countries, China and Canada. More than 15,000 professionals provide leading consumer finance products and services to more than 18 million customers and 130,000 point-of-sale partners at the close of 2020. SCF offers a wide range of consumer finance and banking solutions, mainly through point-of-sales, where the company has developed a unique expertise, and direct-to-consumer channels such as branches, phone centers and online. SCF is part of Santander, one of the largest financial groups in the world.

Banco Santander (SAN SM, STD US, BNC LN) is a leading retail and commercial bank, founded in 1857 and headquartered in Spain. It has a meaningful presence in 10 core markets in the Europe, North America and South America regions, and is one of the largest banks in the world by market capitalization. Its purpose is to help people and businesses prosper in a simple, personal and fair way. Santander is building a more responsible bank and has made a number of commitments to support this objective, including raising over €120 billion in green financing between 2019 and 2025, as well as financially empowering more than 10 million people over the same period. At the end of the first quarter of 2021, Banco Santander had €1.1 trillion in total funds, 149 million customers, of which 23.4 million are loyal and 44.2 million are digital, 10,800 branches and 190,000 employees.