Q1 : Mr Vicente Prior you are working for Santander Universities Global Division of Banco Santander. Can you present in few words Banco Santander and the reason why your bank is paying a special attention to the universities?

Madrid-based Banco Santander is the leading financial group in Spain and Latin America, with a significant presence throughout Western Europe and the United Kingdom. Its main business is commercial banking, combined with global undertakings in wholesale banking, card services, asset management and insurance. At the end of 2008, Banco Santander had 80 million customers and more than 14,000 branches, more than anyone else in world banking.

At Banco Santander, we believe that, as key sources of knowledge in today’s knowledge society, universities play an increasingly important role in today’s knowledge society, in which they have to act as guides leading to a more innovative society and as key reference to ensure it is fair and humane.

Accordingly, as an expression of its commitment to social progress, Banco Santander set up the Santander Universities Global Division, whose work forms the basis of the bank’s social action and has allowed it to forge a lasting alliance with academia in Latin America, China, USA, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, UK and Russia.

The bank invested €600 million between 1996 and 2008 to support academic, research and technology projects in higher education.

Q2 : What is the content of the agreement proposed by the bank to the universities and what is your business model as we understand that you do not ask the university to pay for the card?

When a partnership agreement is signed, Banco Santander helps the university in question to develop initiatives in different areas, such as teaching and research, international cooperation, technology transfer, developing enterprise culture, university mobility and innovation.

Partnership agreements between the bank and a university often include a university smart card for students and teaching staff, offering a range of different functions in addition to simply identifying the holder. This service is provided free of charge to universities.

Q3 : What is the position of Banco Santander on the market of universities

Banco Santander is the only bank in the world to be specifically involved with universities, which it considers to be a key element in the process of social development. This special relationship began in 1996 and has developed into one of the bank’s identifying characteristics.

The bank has more than 700 full partnership agreements with universities in Europe (Spain, Portugal and UK), America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, Venezuela and USA) and elsewhere around the world (China, Morocco and Russia). Through Universia, one of the bank’s joint projects with universities, Banco Santander has established partnerships with 1,100 academic institutions.

 Q4: What are the main services provided?

Every year, Banco Santander is involved in more than 2,000 university projects (teaching, research, promoting the use of technology on campus, promoting the relationship between business and universities, etc.) and runs initiatives for awarding more than 12,000 grants every year to promote learning, research, social inclusion and the incorporation of students into the employment market.

One of the most noteworthy technology projects that Banco Santander runs with universities is the University Smart Card, which uses the latest chip technology to provide functionality tailored to the specific requirements of more than 200 university communities that use them. The cards are used as personal identification, as well as offering other services such as checking academic records at ATMs and self-service kiosks installed on campus, managing library loans, and controlling access to restricted areas and computers. Holders can use them as electronic purse cards or debit cards, and benefit from discounts at a wide range of shops. The latest services that have been added to cards include electronic signatures, special discounts on public transport in certain cities in Spain and America, and managing sports services at universities. To date, Banco Santander has jointly issued 3.7 million university cards in more than 200 universities in 11 different countries.

Banco Santander also offers specific products to the university community to help finance study and cover the needs of students, teaching staff, researchers and administrative and service staff.

Q: You have decided to migrate to  the technology of the Javacard . What are the reasons of this choice ?

The main purpose of the card is identification, in accordance with the needs of the universities, which encourages open standards. Following the work done by the university smart card technical observatory at the University of Cantabria, which we support, Java was chosen in October 2008 as the best platform to support the current and future needs of universities, without imposing any restrictions on services provided by the banking or any other sector. Key entities involved in manufacturing smart cards, payment systems and mobile telephones, as well as Banco Santander and researchers from the aforementioned university, were all involved in this project.

Q: By using a Javacard you will offer the possibility to the students to download the Calypso applet. Do you think this will give an important added value to your card ? Do you intent to test this feature soon and where?

One of the latest services added to the card is the ability to pay for public transport in several universities, which, according to the annual user surveys, is the service most valued by students, along with discounts at shops, including transport. Calypso is the system used in public transport in several countries where we issue the card, especially in Portugal, where we are significantly increasing our presence. The card issued to more than 35,000 students, teachers, researchers and staff at the University of Porto is the first to include the Calypso applet. The tests performed with Transportes Intermodais de Porto in 2008 (the city’s metro, bus and train operator) were successful and we are currently in the process of extending the service to the university community.