Santander Consumer USA Chairwoman Resigns for Broader Role at Spanish Lender

By Tess Stynes 

Former J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. executive Blythe Masters resigned as nonexecutive chairwoman of Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc., the subprime auto-lending unit of the Spanish banking giant, after less than a year.

Ms. Masters, who was appointed as Santander Consumer's nonexecutive chairwoman in July 2015, will move into a broader role with parent company Banco Santander SA with a focus on its global digital banking efforts. In her new roles, Ms. Masters will be senior technology adviser and will join Santander's international advisory board. She also will be on the board of Santander's online bank, Openbank.

Ms. Masters is chief executive of financial technology startup Digital Asset Holdings LLC. Her previous experience includes senior executive roles at J.P. Morgan Chase, including serving as head of its global commodities business from 2007 to 2014, and serving as finance chief of its investment bank from 2004 to 2007.

She will be succeeded as Santander Consumer chairwoman by board member William Rainer. He is a former CEO of OneChicago LLC and a former chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Ms. Masters' resignation comes a week after the U.S. Federal Reserve faulted Banco Santander SA's U.S. holding company for failing to meet regulators' standards on a range of basic business operations. Regulators also faulted risk management at the U.S. consumer-lending subsidiary, whose chief executive stepped down abruptly the previous week.

The Fed's recent efforts to press the largest U.S. banks to improve their risk management typically have targeted discrete problems, such as anti-money-laundering controls or mortgage underwriting, rather than reaching across an organization, such as in Santander's case.

Santander Consumer, one of the largest U.S. auto lenders, also has faced a number of federal inquiries into its auto-lending practices.

Write to Tess Stynes at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 12, 2016 09:58 ET (13:58 GMT)

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