Spanish bank Santander agreed to pay Spain's Telefonica 38 million euros ($54.5 million) for data about its customers in Latin America to target them with insurance products, Expansion reported. The deal, signed between Santander Insurance Holding and Telefonica Internacional (TISA) in 2009, gives the euro zone's largest bank access to databases about 190 million Telefonica customers, reported the financial daily on Monday without citing sources. Santander signed three contracts with Telefonica and has still to pay 7.5 million euros, said the paper. Latin America is a key market for both companies, particularly since consumers in their home country are cutting back on optional spending due to economic conditions. One in five workers in Spain are out of work and many employees have had their pay frozen or cut. Santander already has 40.3 million customers in the region while Telefonica has 190.3 million, more than 40 percent of whom are in Brazil and 22.5 million in Argentina. No one from Santander or Telefonica was immediately available to comment on the report
