The head of Digital Asset Holdings has been invited to take the position of senior advisor on distributed ledgers at the Spanish bank group Santander.

Masters will also join Banco Santander’s International Advisory Board and become a board member of Openbank, the company’s subsidiary online bank. 

This is not the first time the financier is cooperating with Banco Santander. She earlier worked as a member of the board of directors at Santander Consumer (SC) USA.

“Blythe will bring her expertise in banking, business and blockchain where it will have significant impact to our digital bank, International Advisory Board and strategy team. She has done an outstanding job for SC, and I’m looking forward to her focusing our global efforts in digital banking,” said Ana Botín, executive chairman of Banco Santander.

“I am excited to have this opportunity to work with Banco Santander more expansively,” said Masters, commenting on her new position.

Before joining Digital Asset Holdings, Blythe Masters had spent 27 years working for JPMorgan at different positions. She is considered to be one of those who stood at the origins of the credit derivatives market.

In March 2015, she left the JPMorgan team and joined Digital Asset Holdings as the company’s CEO. At the end of 2015, she was offered the job of heading the investment department at Barclays but rejected the offer in order to continue her work in the field of distributed ledger technologies.

Masters is said to be one of the most influential figures in the field of financial blockchain services.

Banco Santander is already using the blockchain technology in a pilot project focused on cross-border payments in Europe. The company’s British subsidiary Santander UK uses an integrated Ripple-based blockchain platform to facilitate cross-border multicurrency remittances. Transfers can be made between 21 countries of Europe and the USA in three currencies – GBP, EUR and USD.

Elena Platonova