Víctor Allende, the architect of the success of CaixaBank’s private banking in recent years, has been signed by Santander, with the aim of giving a definitive boost to a key segment in the strategy of financial entities for the growth of the asset management segment, which leaves greater commission income.
The entity chaired by Ana Botín has reorganized the management of the bank in Spain, with the arrival of Ignacio Juliá, from ING, as the new CEO, and among the movements made, there is also the arrival of Allende in the Cantabrian entity in the area of Asset Management, Insurance and Private Banking, now managed globally by Javier García de Carranza and directed by Adela Martín for Spain.
The entity chaired by José Ignacio Goirigolzarri has already filled its void with the internal promotion of Belén Martínwho was until now territorial director of CaixaBank in Castilla y León, and who has more than 25 years of banking experience, according to the firm in a statement.
Allende’s success at CaixaBank over the last decade is measured by the leadership achieved by the Catalan entity in a very competitive segment in recent years, in which decidedly opted for independent advice at a time when the possibility of abolishing retrocessions was being debated in Europe.
And although in the latest modification of Mifid in Brussels the hardest positions on this issue have been softened, in the sector there are more and more who consider that the tendency to charge clients for advice and not so much for setbacks in the distribution of investment products will be maintained.
Allende, in this sense, has overtaken its competitors and placed CaixaBank as leader in discretionary portfolio management, with almost 48 billion euros, according to the latest data from Inverco, well above its most direct competitors, BBVA and Santander, with 20,786 million and 19,358 million euros respectively.
In the CaixaBank Wealth area, focused exclusively on independent advice, the entity managed a volume of 40 billion dollars in 2023, according to the ranking of People Fundsa media specialized in the sector, while in Open Wealth, aimed at clients with assets greater than 50 million euros, it already has 7.3 billion in the Iberian market.
In the private banking sector, it is difficult to have data on the volume handled by the entities because not all of them clearly specify their figures, but in the latest ranking by elEconomista.es, CaixaBank appears increasingly close to Santander, which tops the ranking with more than 150,000 million, with data at the end of last year.
With the signing of Allende, Santander’s objective is to increase the volume and commercial capacities of the entity after the good results obtained by the leader of CaixaBank.
