There's no talk to walk but Santander is fast on its feet

When Spain's Santander emerged last week as commander of one of Britain's biggest branch networks – as well as a sturdy, predatory bank whose lightning reflexes calmed a moment of panic and meltdown – the news prompted satisfaction and pride at home, but no great surprise.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero puffed out his chest in last week's national budget debate, telling MPs that Santander, with its massive profits and zero exposure to dodgy loan packages, was "the envy of the world".

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Spaniards are flattered and proud of the attention heaped on their flagship banking behemoth after it rescued the juicy bits of Bradford & Bingley last Monday. But they already know that Spain's top bank bestrides the globe, that it's number one in the eurozone, supreme in Latin America – which produces a third of the group's profits – seventh in the world by market value, and that its boss, Emilio Botin, craves to be master of the world. As he puts it: "The ambition is to be second to none."

Unlike, say, screen god Javier Bardem or the movie maker Pedro Almodovar, who became Spanish heroes only after they'd won fame and adulation abroad, Botin, 73, has long been considered Spain's most powerful man, and Banco Santander his mighty fiefdom.

I remember attending an election rally in 1995 where the Socialist leader Felipe Gonzalez urged his supporters to vote, telling them that only on polling day was their individual voice as powerful as that of Botin's.

International success is therefore seen as little less than his due. Wise and ruthless, with three generations of banking genes, Botin took over Santander in 1986 after his father, Emilio Snr, stepped down as chairman aged 84. He eliminated domestic competition through high-profile takeovers and mergers; entered – then left, wallet laden – Spain's construction, energy and telecoms sectors when they were privatised in the 1990s; and established a foothold in Britain with the acquisition of Abbey in 2004, then Alliance & Leicester in July.

He pulled off the real estate deal of the century by selling Santander's 1,200 belle époque palaces across Spain for €4bn, just before the property market crashed last year. The deal neatly funded the bank's acquisition, with Royal Bank of Scotland and Fortis, of the Dutch bank ABN Amro. Botin sold what didn't interest him to focus on his core business of retail banking, triumphing from a deal that sank his Belgian partner Fortis.

Decades of meticulously plotted progress produced record profits this year of €9bn, 19.3 per cent up on last year, in the teeth of economic crisis. While world finances juddered, Santander, guided by its omnipotent chairman, savoured its finest hour.

But Botin doesn't flaunt himself in public. Request an interview and you're handed his speech to shareholders. Retirement is never mentioned, although his handsome, discreet, Harvard-educated daughter Ana Patricia, 47, herself a world-class banker, waits in the wings.

Spanish observers now expect Santander to consolidate further in Britain and continental Europe, before, perhaps, wading into the wreckage of the United States.