"Despite corporate policies, Santander made available €3.59bn in the weapons industry since 2015."

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Armed conflicts have intensified in the last 30 years, having an impact beyond battle casualties, such as forced migration, infrastructure destruction, and a humanitarian cost of EUR19.9bn, targeting 93M people in need^1;p4. Since 2012, 29% of global arms imports went to the Middle East, the heart of the world’s armed-conflict².

The human rights Banco Santander (BS) policy commits to respect human rights and prevent any harm caused by its business^3;p3. However, by 2019, BS was one of the 10 European Banks with the highest investments in 11 global defence companies engaged in developing autonomous weapons and controversial arms trade with countries in conflict^4;p4 and repressive regimes in the MENA region^4;p16.
Since 2015-2018, the 10 banks provided €24.2bn in finance and held €9.9bn in investments^4;p4. BS had financial relations with 8/11 of the identified firms^4;p70, providing almost €1.64bn in loans^4;p70, and €97.65M in investments^4;p7. The eight firms linked to BS^4;p70 traded a total of 83,374 weapon systems from 2015-2018^4;p5.

Banco Santander is also part of the 325 financial institutions that provided €634.2bn in financing the top 18 nuclear weapons producers from 2017-2019^5;p6. BS made available €1.86bn to 7/18 of the top producers^5;p84-85. This is despite its 2018 Defence Sector Policy, which states Banco Santander will not finance nuclear weapons^6;p4.

Since 2012, Banco Santander was criticised for incoherence between its policies and practice⁷, as BS’s financial link with arm-makers and traders is not recent. In 2012, BS was ranked the second-largest investor among 21 Spanish Banks^8;p24. Since 2007, BS had poured €1.02bn or 32% of the total value of the Spanish arm-funding^8;p24.

Banco Santander contributed €3.59bn in the weapons industry since 2015, and at least €4.61bn since 2007. Banco Santander should effectively implement its human rights policy to avoid harm caused by its operations, extend its defence policy to controversial weapons used for armed conflict, and divest from sectors that massively impair human rights.



Sources

• 1. https://unidir.org/publication/addressing-conventional-arms-risks-and-impacts-prevent-conflict-and-build-peace-what#:~:text=The%20impact%20of%20armed%20conflict,more%20broadly%2C%20negatively%20affecting%20development
• 2. https://www.sipri.org/yearbook/2017/03
• 3. https://www.santander.com/content/dam/santander-com/en/contenido-paginas/nuestro-compromiso/pol%C3%ADticas/do-Human%20rights%20policy-en.pdf
• 4. https://www.facing-finance.org/files/2019/05/ff_dp7_ONLINE_v02.pdf
• 5. https://www.dontbankonthebomb.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019_HOS_web.pdf
• 6. https://www.banktrack.org/download/defence_sector_policy_2/210121_dodefence_sector_policynov2019.pdf
• 7. http://centredelas.org/actualitat/fake-corporate-social-responsibility-against-the-financing-of-arms/?lang=en
• 8. https://www.banktrack.org/download/banks_and_arms_explosive_investments/890_informe11_engish.pdf

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