SPAIN is cementing its position as Europe’s new financial powerhouse with the news that Banco Santander has been crowned the continent’s largest bank – and two more Spanish lenders also rank in the top ten.
According to Market Watch, Santander leads the European Union with a market capitalisation of €128 billion, outpacing Italy’s UniCredit (€101 billion) and Intesa Sanpaolo (€101 billion).
Santander dethroned Swiss bank UBS in April 2025 to take the title of most valuable bank in continental Europe after a fall in UBS’s share price to €109 billion.
Spain’s BBVA (€95 billion) and CaixaBank (€64 billion) also make the list, giving the country three entries in the continental top tier.
France remains strong with BNP Paribas (€91 billion) and Crédit Agricole (€50 billion), while Germany’s biggest publicly traded lender Deutsche Bank stands at €62 billion.
But the centre of gravity is clearly shifting south, with Iberian banks commanding increasing influence.
In wider Europe, the UK remains dominant in terms of size, with HSBC the largest bank with a market capitalisation of approximately €192 billion, followed by Barclays (€64 billion), Lloyds, and NatWest Group.
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HSBC also ranks among the world’s top ten banks by market value, confirming Britain’s longstanding importance as a financial hub outside the EU.
Santander ascended to the top of Europe’s banking league in market value during early 2025, surpassing the €100 billion mark – a level it had not reached since 2015.
Founded in the northern port city of Santander in 1857, Banco Santander has grown into a global giant with more than 160 million customers across Europe and the Americas. It is also one of the UK’s largest foreign banks.
The Spanish lender entered the British market two decades ago by acquiring Abbey National and later Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley, merging them into Santander UK.
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Today the group serves 14 million UK customers, employs 18,000 staff, and manages assets of more than €332 billion.
This summer it strengthened that position by acquiring TSB from Sabadell in a €3.1 billion deal, adding another five million customers and hundreds of branches.
Beyond the UK, Santander has entrenched itself in Latin America, with dominant positions in Brazil and Mexico.
It also maintains operations in the United States, Portugal, Poland and several other European markets, making it one of the most internationally diversified banks on the continent.
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By assets, Santander ranks fourth in Europe with nearly €1.9 trillion on its books, behind only HSBC (over €2.6 trillion) and France’s ‘big two’ of BNP Paribas (€2.59 trillion) and Crédit Agricole (€2.43 trillion).
Deutsche Bank sits ninth at €1.4 trillion.
Germany’s Sparkassen savings banks remain the country’s true heavyweight, holding around €2.5 trillion collectively, but its shares are not publicly traded.
For Spain, the surge is historic.
With three banks in the European top ten and its flagship now leading the pack, the country has firmly established itself as a financial power equal to, and in some respects surpassing, its northern rivals.
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I can’t detect an value in hosting so many banks, which are too big to fail. Take France as a warning: Two of the largest banks in the EU (BNP Paribas and Credit Agricole), but the country is going to loose its good credit rating. Finally those banks have to be bailed out by us, the European tax payers, while the owners of the bank shares take the profits.