History

Originally established in Oslo

Oslo

Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 in 2001 by four individuals; Tor Erland Fyksen, Jan Grenth, Eirik Holtedahl, and Raimond Pettersen, having raised approx. USD 20 million from Norwegian investors. Its customer base was sold to a Spanish Financial Institution in Spring 2005 for (ca. ), and the name was changed from Bankia Bank to Santander Consumer Bank. It had become Norway's most profitable bank in terms on return on equity

It specializes in offering deposit account

Deposit account

A deposit account is a current account, savings account, or other type of bank account, at a banking institution that allows money to be deposited and withdrawn by the account holder. These transactions are recorded on the bank's books, and the resulting balance is recorded as a liability for the...

s and credit cards to consumers, focusing on issuing VISA

VISA (credit card)

Visa Inc. is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered on 595 Market Street, Financial District in San Francisco, California, United States, although much of the company's staff is based in Foster City, California. It facilitates electronic funds transfers throughout...

 credit cards. It was the only Norwegian bank not having fees on any of its products, until Spring 2005 when its customer base was sold to the Spanish Financial Institution Grupo Santander

Grupo Santander

The Santander Group is a banking group centered on Banco Santander, S.A., the largest bank in the Eurozone and one of the largest banks in the world in terms of market capitalisation. According to Forbes Magazine Global 2000, it is the 13th largest public company in the world...

; which introduced additional fee-based products. The Bank achieved about 110,000 clients. The name was changed to Santander Consumer Bank .

Santander Consumer Bank in Norway offers a self-serve service , where clients do not have access to regular banking services, but are offered a few niche consumer products. Most notably savings accounts that are used to fund a single specific product like credit cards. Total purchase turnover on international credit cards issued by Norwegian banks increased by 978% from 1998–2007, while debit card usage was up 106% for the period - however, credit cards remain a small component of total card usage with only 9% of turnover. Total card usage in 2007 was NOK

Norwegian krone

The krone is the currency of Norway and its dependent territories. The plural form is kroner . It is subdivided into 100 øre. The ISO 4217 code is NOK, although the common local abbreviation is kr. The name translates into English as "crown"...

 557 billion.

In December 2005, Fyksen, Grenth, and Holtedahl established a second bank in Luxembourg offering the same products. The new bank, Advanzia Bank

Advanzia Bank

Advanzia Bank S.A. was established in Luxembourg in 2005 subject to CSSF supervision, specializing in euro savings accounts and no-fee credit cards. The bank was established as a result of the former Founding Management of Bankia Bank seeking to establish an EU-based bank...

, had by year-end 2006 become the largest Luxembourg credit card issuer, being the only bank offering no-fee credit cards in Luxembourg and Germany. DKB

BayernLB

BayernLB or Bayerische Landesbank is a publicly regulated bank based in Munich, Germany and one of the eight Landesbanken. It is 94% owned by the free state of Bavaria and 6% owned by the Sparkassenverband Bayern, the umbrella organization of Bavarian Sparkassen...

offers a Visa Classic deferred debit card without any fees, except foreign exchange fees - being one of the more competitive payment card alternatives.