Pros
Formerly Sovereign Bank in the US, so the company paid well to attract talent from Citi, BOA, Wells, etc. for sales roles in private banking, business banking, etc. Retail business model was recently re-aligned for certain retail level personnel to reflect higher levels of autonomy and responsibility.
Cons
Because Santander USA consists of a smaller, recently acquired, and converted northeastern US regional bank, it's chasing big-bank ambitions before actually building up it's operating technology, brand and reputation. Name recognition is entirely non-existent and can be a hurdle when looking to acquire affluent, and more established clientele. Simple things such as customer service that closed on the weekend, updated but inadequate business online banking - outages, customer information systems not fully integrated, and simple technical issues were common place as recently as January of this year. Many of these were deal-breakers for prospects considering bringing their full banking relationship over from more capable institutions.