By Jesús Aguado and Saeed Azhar

MADRID/NEW YORK, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Spain's Santander

launched its digital bank in the United States on

Monday, which will help it to fund over $30 billion of auto

lending assets and broaden its retail business in the country,

U.S. CEO Tim Wennes told Reuters.

The euro zone's third-biggest lender by market value is one

of the few European banks with a retail presence in the U.S.

market following the exit of rivals BBVA and BNP

Paribas.

Santander has over $45 billion in retail deposits at its

409-strong U.S. branch network, mainly in nine states in the

northeast, and over $60 billion in autolending assets.

"We have north of $30 billion of auto assets that are not

funded by the bank today, that are wholesale funded," Wennes

told Reuters in an online interview late on Friday.

Funding via the wholesale market is more expensive than if

the bank funds the assets directly, but Wennes did not say how

much the bank would save by moving to the cheaper funding

structure.

The launch of Openbank, which is currently Europe's largest

digital bank with over 18.5 billion euros in deposits, is part

of Santander's global strategy to become a digital bank with

branches.

To try and gain market share in deposits in the U.S.,

Santander is initially offering a yield of 5.25% on its savings

account, higher than Goldman Sachs' ( GS ) digital bank Marcus

which gives 4.1% on its online savings account or the up to 4.7%

from CIT Bank's platinum savings account.

U.S. banks such as JPMorgan ( JPM ) and Bank of America ( BAC )

hold the largest share of bank deposits in the country.

A successful launch of a fully digital offering in the U.S.,

where Santander has 4.5 million total customers, will be crucial

because the bank's U.S. business has been generating subpar

returns.

Hiring expenses and higher provisions resulted in a 0.4%

year-on-year fall in net profit in the U.S. in the first half.

Wennes said the bank would analyse how to best grow this

digital platform and "certainly evaluate if partnership

opportunities would make sense".

He also said that Santander was "comfortable today" with

current resources deployed at its corporate investment bank in

the U.S. following its recent expansion after hiring former

executives from the collapsed Credit Suisse.