Coworking Europe reports that Banko Santander are expanding their Work Café concept int Portugal, noting the group are planning to open 25 locations in the country.

ICYMI: They recently passed 100 locations in Spain, bringing their total to 233 locations worldwide, with Cafés also in US, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Poland and the UK.

Danish-Swedish furniture-as-a-service company NORNORM secured €50M in mixed equity and debt from existing investors including Inter IKEA, Verdane, Banco Santander, and Philian Invest (H&M heir Karl-Johan Persson’s investment vehicle), bringing total capital raised to €170M. Founded in 2020 by former IKEA executive Anders Munk Jepsen and Skype co-creator Jonas Kjellberg, Nornorm rents office furniture to businesses on flexible subscription basis with six-month cancellation notice, focusing on easily refurbished pieces sent to warehouses for repair and re-rental.

The company more than doubled revenue in 2024 from €1.47M to €3.11M and achieved profitability for the first time, operating a circular business model where reuse and refurbishment directly improve margins rather than encouraging higher material consumption.

Banco Santander is accelerating the transformation of its retail branches into Work Cafés – which combine banking services, coworking space and cafés.

As of 2024, they operate 239 such cafés, including 92 in Spain, and others in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Portugal, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Jonathan Weinbrenn from BE.Spoke shares a photo from an upcoming Work Café from Santander bank coming to Cheapside in London.

This follows moves from banks like Capital One, Virgin Money and a few others who are exploring work cafés and spaces.

Ben Tannenbaum shares news of Santander has stepped into hosting free workspaces for their customers. In the comments folks point out that banks worldwide are also/already diving in to offer their customers space to work from too.