Banco Santander acquires 50.1% stake in Spanish fintech company Mercury TFS

Banco Santander has expanded its global trade platform for companies by acquiring a 50.1% stake in Spanish fintech company Mercury Trade Finance Solutions (Mercury TFS) for €30 million.

Mercury TFS is a trade finance digitalization software provider, which specializes in software solutions designed for automating the end-to-end management of trade finance transactions for corporate customers.

Banco Santander said that the deal, which forms part of its digital strategy to speed up growth by buying up corporate stakes, will bolster its global trade offer. Furthermore, it will reinforce its position as the bank of choice for SMEs and corporates that operate internationally.

The Spanish banking giant said that Mercury TFS’s software enables its customers to handle their entire trade finance activity online or through mobile phone, thereby boosting the user experience, decreasing response times, and enhancing service quality.

Banco Santander acquires stake in Mercury TFS. Banco Santander S.A.

The Spanish fintech company is also expected to enable Banco Santander to digitalize internal process management to achieve greater control and operational efficiency.

Mercury TFS has a workforce of 130 across Spain, Mexico, Chile, and Colombia.

Javier San Félix – head of Banco Santander Global Payments Services said: “The investment accelerates our plans to build a service platform for SMEs and international companies to better serve our customers worldwide. We are also helping to globalise Mercury TFS, a software company with huge potential and a team with enormous talent, by reinforcing their technical and commercial teams and complementing their already broad product range.”

Banco Santander said that it had used the services of Mercury TFS in Spain, Mexico, Germany, and Chile for years. The Spanish bank said that its businesses across the UK and Portugal will start using Mercury TFS’ services at year-end through Global Trade Services (GTS), which is the former’s global trade platform.

Global Trade Services caters to SMEs and companies, which carry out international business, with international payments, currency exchange, trade finance, and multicountry accounts.

According to Banco Santander, Mercury TFS has a flexible, open and cloud-ready architecture that can be integrated seamlessly into open financial platforms and with modular design, such as Global Trade Services.

In November 2019, the Spanish banking group acquired a stake of 50.1% stake in Ebury, which developed an international trade and forex platform for SMEs.