7 projects that have defined Santander's technology in 2022

🥳 We have closed 2022 with the feeling of having done things well, because this year has been full of great projects in the area of technology at Santander 🙌.

We have migrated our core banking business to the cloud with Gra v ity ☁️, developing pioneering in-house software that Google started to market a few months ago, we have globalised our Be Tech! with Santander recruitment plan, now offering a single entry point for all job offers in our technology teams around the world, we have been recognised as the most transparent company in cybersecurity, and we have promoted Women in Tech, a programme with which we want to break down gender barriers in the IT sector.

Of course, all this would not be possible without all the technology teams at Santander and the “SanExperts” community of experts 💓, who tell you what projects they have been involved in this year and what they have achieved.

Ismael Alonso, CISO at Gravity

Project Category: Cloud ☁️

For Ismael, the project of the year has been Gravity, a unique development that revolutionises core banking by allowing it to be uploaded to the cloud. With Gravity we managed to move the systems that form the core of the bank to the Cloud.

All transactions carried out 24 hours a day in the Bank’s branches, digital channels and from the mobile app are processed by Gravity in one environment.

Gravity allows us to 👇 :

Cost reduction. By moving to the cloud, costs can be adapted to demand at all times.
Unlimited storage capacity.
Optimisation of resources as manual and maintenance tasks are reduced, allowing us to focus on what really matters to customers.
Increased accessibility and mobility.
Scalability to adapt our systems to the needs of the business.
Integration with new technologies. DevOps, integration with artificial intelligence, automation and virtual reality.

In addition to all this, Gravity allows us to bring more products to market more quickly and efficiently. It allows Santander to put applications into production at the speed of the new fintechs and with all the guarantee and security of the Santander Group. More info here.

Rubén Rodríguez, Technical System Software Engineer

Project Category: DEVELOPMENT – Reactive Programming

At Santander we have multiple cutting-edge projects in programming and architecture 🔝 on a par with any top technology company… the bank is no longer just a “host”.

The infrastructure is hosted in the mixed cloud of AWS and Azure, with all components being Cloud-native, managed through Ia C (Infrastructure as Code), allowing great simplicity and control of its management, deployed through automated CD/CI circuits.

Microservices architecture is used (hosted in EKS and/or Openshift) and event-driven (EDA), making extensive use of Kafka as an event broker and its Streaming capabilities for processing data in “fast data” mode. Microservices allow us to fragment the functionalities and support scaling of the different components based on individual load requirements.

In terms of programming, the projects are implemented with Java11 and Spring Boot 2.4, making use of different modules of the Spring ecosystem (Data, Cloud Stream, Cloud Config…).

In addition, use is made of the reactive scheduling paradigm relying on Reactor to allow large workloads to be executed efficiently through the use of non-blocking IO technology, allowing the CPU and memory load to be controlled.

In the data persistence layer, and pursuing the same performance objective, MongoDB is used through its managed solution in the cloud, MongoDB Atlas (as Software as a Service), with all the advantages and security, since BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) encryption is applied.

Joan Rodríguez, DevSecOps – Cyber Detect

Project Category: CYBERSECURITY – Phishing

“This year 2022 I am really proud of the work we have done in the Cyber area where I work. The reason is that we have managed to strengthen and optimise our process of phishing analysis of the reports made to us by our clients in the Santander Group.
In this way, we achieve a very high rate of dismantling malicious links that attempt to impersonate our entity. It is a robust and fast process that allows us to optimise the work of our entire Cyber team.”

Nacho Martín, Developer CoE Full Stack

Project Category: BANKING OF THINGS – Biometrics

During this year we have been working on how we can improve the customer experience in offices, for this we have tried to create a suite of applications in which through the cameras of devices, we can detect people accessing an office and identify without any action required by the person those who have previously registered their biometric profile.

This could be a disruption to branches as we know them as it will allow 👇:

Anticipation: Offering a better customer experience, anticipating the possible needs they may have when entering an office.
Speed: Reduce waiting times by favouring the inclusion of groups that are not familiar with the use of new technologies.
Efficiency: Manage branches more efficiently, controlling the traffic of people in them by means of heat maps.

Of course, all of this is developed in cloud applications with the latest technologies and provides us with a basis for further innovation in the integration of biometrics in our daily lives.

Sergio Cabrera, UX Creative Director

Project Category: WEB – UX

December saw the launch of the new Be Tech! website, 🙌 the place to find all job offers related to technology, now for the entire Santander Group. The site continues with the recruitment plan that began in 2020, through which we have already hired more than 2,000 people only in HQ.

This new career site allows 👇:

Search directly by country and/or category.
Save the most interesting offers in favourites.
It is available in Santander’s 4 official languages (ES, EN, PT-BR, PL).
It is integrated with an API, developed specifically for it, which allows to automate the publication and updating of offers with WorkDay, Santander’s global platform.
It has testimonials from employees from different parts of the world who tell us about their experience working with us.

Visit Be Tech! here: www.betechwithsantander.com 👈👈

Vicente Motos, Head of Purple Team

Project Category: CYBERSECURITY – Purple Team

The network/purple team exercises provide a more authentic view of Santander’s resilience. Taking into account the cyber threat landscape and potential adversaries, realistic attacks are simulated, achieving the following benefits:

An assessment of the organisation’s detection and response to techniques, tactics and procedures (TTP).
Identification of weaknesses in security controls and associated risks not detected by standard vulnerability identification and pentesting methodologies.
An assessment of Santander’s security incident and/or crisis management response and management processes.
A secure and controlled opportunity to identify and improve the security posture by reducing the risk of compromise.
An opportunity for defensive teams to gain experience and become more proficient in incident detection and response.
Provide pragmatic direction to stakeholders involved, as well as confidence in a short, medium and long-term security strategy.

Juan José Prieto, Data Scientist

Project Category: CYBERSECURITY – Data Science

For me, the most interesting thing this year has been working on the implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning / Deep Learning techniques supported by Big Data, to complement detection capabilities in cybersecurity.

This means broadening the view of threats. Behavioural techniques complement and help detect new attackers. Among other benefits 👇👇:

Broader view of potential anomalous activities when dealing with large volumes of data.
Identification of suspicious activities based on behavioural patterns.
Correlation of different sources of information to provide greater coverage of associated risks not detected by standard detection methodologies.
Enrichment with both internal and external contextual information.
Automation and reduction of workload for already overburdened teams.
An opportunity for the different teams to collaborate in the creation of joint products, by involving both cyber-expert knowledge and data knowledge.

Technology is a central part of Santander’s strategy to become a digital bank with branches, and the technology team is constantly growing. These are some of the projects we have developed this year and which are already part of our technology stack.

Want to know what else the technology teams are working on?