Santander has relied in the past on Latin America to cope with tough conditions for lenders in Europe since the financial crisis but banks across Europe are beginning to benefit from higher borrowing costs despite economic uncertainty. The remuneration would be in the form of cash payouts and share buybacks. This would bring Europe, the lender's main contributor to the group's profits, in line with the ROTE target seen for North America. Santander expects its cost of risk, which measures the cost of managing potential losses for the bank, to hover around 100 and 110 basis points in 2025 from an expected 120 bps this year. ($1 = 0.9448 euros)Reporting by Jesús Aguado; additional reporting by Emma Pinedo; editing by Inti Landauro and Emelia Sithole-MatariseOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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