Santander, through Santander Universities, sponsored this year’s INNOVATEChina MBA Global Competition under the theme “Internet Financial Services in the New Era”. Alongside Santander, Ant Financial, the largest digital bank in China and majority-owned by Alibaba Group, co-sponsored the competition. http://bsan.es/1SuPn6k

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NEWS Santander supports INNOVATEChina 2016, an
international MBA competition to promote
innovation
Shanghai, 20th
April 2016-. Santander, through Santander Universities, sponsored this year’s
INNOVATEChina MBA Global Competition under the theme “Internet Financial Services in the New
Era”. Alongside Santander, Ant Financial, the largest digital bank in China and majority-owned by
Alibaba Group, co-sponsored the competition.
The competition, organized by CEIBS, the leading business school in China, aims to be the
reference for MBA students worldwide willing to showcase their innovative ideas and business
models in financial services. Over 50 proposals were received from more than 40 business
schools. The teams from Yale, CEIBS and Oxford won the first, second and third prize
respectively. The awarded business proposals focused on three areas: (i) investing and
gamification; (ii) social linkage criteria for credit scoring in peer to peer lending; and (iii)
crowdfunding of scientific research projects.
For Miguel Solana, head of innovation within the Santander-Bank of Shanghai Strategic
Partnership , “our involvement in this competition, alongside other ongoing initiatives under the
strategic collaboration with Bank of Shanghai, will allow us to bring innovation in China closer to
the Group; China is at the forefront of innovation in banking and there is a unique opportunity to
develop partnerships and identify business models that support Santander’s digital agenda.”
According to Professor Shimin Chen, Asociate Dean and MBA Program Director at CEIBS,
“INNOVATEChina has become a global MBA event; each year it attracts high-caliber participating
teams from top business schools around the world to come to our Shanghai campus and debate
innovative and inspiring business ideas. This year we had the fortune and pleasure to collaborate
with Santander and Ant Financial on a very successful business plan competition with a focus on
internet financial services in the new era. I trust the event has served as a platform to connect the
innovative minds of global business school students with executives and investors to accelerate
the growth of financial services. INNOVATEChina truly exemplifies the unique position of CEIBS in
China Depth and Global Breath.”
For Ana Wang, Head of International Expansion and Asia within Santander Universities, “this
collaboration with CEIBS shows the role of Santander Universities in supporting the strategic
objectives of the Group; our long-term commitment to university education provides us with the
credibility to launch new initiatives and develop partnerships of this kind, helping to foster our
links to the innovation taking place at universities and also engage the new generations in our
transformation; it responds to our ambition of being a more Simple, Personal and Fair bank”.
This initiative is supported by Banco Santander. This bank is the company which invests the most
in supporting education throughout the world (Report Varkey/UNESCO-Fortune 500) through
Santander Universities. Banco Santander maintains 1.200 collaboration agreements with
universities and academic institutions worldwide (15 of these agreements support initiatives
from Asian universities).