CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

The third quarter of 2005 has witnessed several important activities within the BBVA group’s corporate social responsibility policy and also its increasing public acknowledgement.

Special mention should be given to BBVA’s membership of the two most important international specialist CSR stock-market indices: FTSE4Good and Dow Jones Sustainability, both of which published their latest benchmarking in September. The FTSE4Good, which provides detailed rankings, recorded considerable progress in BBVA, placing it amongst the best banks world-wide, with an overall score of 75 points out of 100 (in 2004 it awarded it 60) and rating it especially highly along the economic and social dimensions. This compares against an average of 48 points and a best-of-class score of 84 from its peer banks. BBVA was also included on the more selective Dow Jones Sustainability Stoxx for the first time. This index tracks the leading sustainability-driven companies selected from the DJStoxx (the outstanding 20% in each industry).

Meanwhile the Fundación Empresa y Sociedad’s yearly analysis of corporate social responsibility reports published by Spanish companies the previous year deemed BBVA’s to be Spain’s best such annual report in 2004.

The achievements of the group’s banks in Latin America have also been publicly recognised. An article in the Latin Finance journal analysed the ethics, corporate governance, transparency, sustainability and social responsibility of banks in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. It considered BBVA Banco Francés (Argentina), BBVA Colombia, BBVA Bancomer (Mexico) and BBVA Banco Continental (Peru) amongst the best banks in these fields. Peru’s Sociedad Nacional de Industrias awarded BBVA Banco Continental the 2005 National Prize for Quality. This covers various aspects of performance, giving a significant weighting to best practices in corporate social responsibility.

The principal initiatives related to corporate social responsibility over the quarter included the following: 

· Launch of a new totally free loan to cover special needs under the umbrella of the BBVA Families Plan. The new product, called Préstamo Superación (literally: the Overcoming Loan) allows families with a disabled person in them to borrow up to a maximum of €3,000 without any interest or fees, to use for training, mobility and sensorial enhancement programmes or other kinds of medical, psychological or physiotherapy treatment.

· The public presentation of Anida’s commitment to set aside 0.7% of its net profit for corporate social responsibility activities. Anida is the BBVA group’s real estate company, and declared it will be funding nature-conservation projects and helping to roll out especially demanding practices in environmental care (ISO 14001 environmental quality certification, an environmentally certified wood and paper procurement policy and strict sustainability standards in its new property developments).

· The latest BBVA Quetzal Route expedition, in which young people from 52 countries explored little-known parts of Peru and Spain for a month and a half and were received by the Spanish king and queen on 15th July.

· Development of new exhibition programmes, with two new exhibits inaugurated this quarter.

· Various BBVA Foundation activities in the areas of training, dissemination of knowledge and research. The Foundation completed two important sociological studies (“Transatlantic Trends” and “Inmigración y transformación social en España” –Immigration and Social Change in Spain) and awarded two new research grants for biodiversity conservation, with a total budget of €2.4 million, selecting twelve projects to be funded.

· Roll-out of an on-line, distance-learning course to teach the over 22,000 employees in the Retail Banking network in Spain about money-laundering prevention.

· Launch of the “Passion for People” portal, with new initiatives for employees. These include an equity investment plan that offers group employees the possibility of buying BBVA shares under advantageous conditions.