Santander BanCorp Declares Common Shares Dividend for the Fourth Quarter SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Nov. 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Board of Directors of Santander BanCorp (NYSE: SBP; LATIBEX: XSBP), declared a cash dividend amounting to $0.16 per common share. The dividend shall be payable on January 3, 2005 to shareholders of record as of December 10, 2004. Jose R. Gonzalez, President and CEO of Santander BanCorp stated "We are extremely pleased that we have been able to increase our dividend by $0.05 per common share from $0.11 to $0.16 per share. This increase is due to the company's improving profitability since 2003." Cash dividends on common shares are eligible for direct reinvestment under the Company's Dividend Reinvestment and Cash Purchase Plan. For additional information on how to participate in Santander BanCorp's Dividend Reinvestment and Cash Purchase Plan, shareholders should contact our transfer agent and registrar, Mellon Investor Services LLC, at (800) 851-9677. Santander BanCorp is a publicly held financial holding company that is traded on the New York Stock Exchange and on Latibex (Madrid Stock Exchange). It has three wholly owned subsidiaries, Banco Santander Puerto Rico, Santander Securities Corporation and Santander Insurance Agency. Banco Santander Puerto Rico has been operating in Puerto Rico for 27 years. It offers a full array of services through 65 branches in the areas of commercial, mortgage and consumer banking, supported by a team of over 1,600 employees. Santander Securities offers securities brokerage services and provides portfolio management services through its wholly owned subsidiary Santander Asset Management Corporation. Santander Insurance Agency offers life, health and disability coverage as a corporate agent and also operates as a general agent. For more information, visit the Company's website at http://www.santandernet.com/. Grupo Santander (SAN.MC, STD.N) ranks amongst the first ten principal banks in the world and is the largest bank in the Euro Zone by market capitalization. Founded in 1857, Grupo Santander currently has 59 million clients, 10,000 offices and presence in over 40 countries. It is the first Financial Group in Spain and Latin America and maintains an important business activity in Europe, where Grupo Santander had reached a prominent presence in the United Kingdom with the acquisition of Abbey National. Grupo Santander owns the third largest banking group in Portugal and additionally owns Santander Consumer Finance, a leading consumer finance franchise in Germany, Italy and seven other European countries. In Latin America, Grupo Santander maintains a leading position where it manages over $114,000 million in volume of business (loans, deposits and off- balance sheet assets under management) and has 4,052 offices in ten countries, serving more than 12 million individual clients and approximately half a million small and medium sized companies. As of the third trimester of 2004, Grupo Santander obtained a net attributable income of $1,225 million in Latin America, an increase of over 8.8% for the same period of last year. DATASOURCE: Santander BanCorp CONTACT: Maria Calero, +1-787-751-6640, or Evelyn Vega, +1-787-777-4546, both for Santander BanCorp Web site: http://www.santandernet.com/

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