The executive chair of the European banking giant Santander Group issued a rallying cry for a common services market in Europe.
Ana Botin spoke to CNBC Wednesday, shortly after announcing the bank was seeking to cut 1.2 billion euros in costs as part of a drive to hit previous profitability targets. Santander is mainlaind Europe's largest bank by market capitalization, according to Statista, and is estimated by Botin to be in the top three when measured by total assets.
"The big American banks, in an economy that is very similar to ours, have much bigger scale. So, the common services market has to happen because 80 percent of our economy is services," said Botin, before adding:"It is crucial that we have bigger companies, because scale matters." Botin said the ECB's efforts to prop up the euro zone should not go unnoticed but suggested that more could be done to help out European banks.
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