BBVA embarks on a new growth phase in Spain, with customers at its heart and AI at the forefront
BBVA is entering a new phase from a position of leadership and credibility, following years of transforming its business model and building relationships with its customers. In the current environment, the bank aims to accelerate its growth in Spain by focusing on three levers: expanding its customer base, deepening customer relationships and increasing its presence in higher-value businesses such as the enterprise segments, insurance and Global Wealth. Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be the key accelerator in this new phase, with customers at the heart of the transformation and an increasingly simple, hyper-personalized and specialized experience. This was highlighted by BBVA’s country manager in Spain, Peio Belausteguigoitia, during a meeting with analysts and investors.
In terms of customer growth, in 2025, BBVA added 962,000 retail customers in Spain and a further 68,000 business customers, representing 2 times and 1.3 times, respectively, the acquisition rates recorded in 2019. Of these new customers, 70% make BBVA their main bank within the first six months.
The bank has set itself the goal of further improving customer experience and ensuring that these relationships generate greater value from the outset. Indeed, the revenue generated by a primary customer increases 3.7-fold on average over five years. In the case of enterprise clients, customers that maintain a primary banking relationship with BBVA generate twice as much revenue as those with a less engaged relationship.
In enterprise segments, BBVA aims to become its customers’ strategic partner and play a more relevant role in their day-to-day operations. To achieve this goal, the bank is working on developing transactional solutions —such as payroll and tax payments and foreign trade-related solutions— and increasingly secure digital services to provide a better customer experience. At the same time, it is harnessing the potential of AI to simplify and accelerate processes and provide increasingly specialized advice, BBVA’s country manager explained.
Peio Belausteguigoitia said that the strategy will be tailored to the specific needs of each segment and each company. In the SME segment, where BBVA led customer acquisition in 2025 — one in four new SMEs that opened an account in Spain did so with the bank — BBVA will continue to strengthen digital and remote engagement, which is particularly valued by these customers, while developing sector-specific propositions.
For larger companies, it will strengthen specialized advisory services and use AI-based tools to expand relationship managers’ capabilities and simplify processes. For large corporations, the focus will be on deepening relationships, with cross-border business and sustainability as the main growth levers, while continuing to develop sector-specific advisory capabilities.
Another business where BBVA’s head of Spain sees growth potential is insurance: only 21% of customers have an insurance policy with the bank, a figure BBVA aims to increase through its strategic partnerships in the non-life segments, where BBVA is already growing faster than the market. Premiums in these segments grew by 18% between 2021 and 2025, compared with 7% for the market. BBVA now aims to move forward with a more personalized offering, anticipating its customers’ protection needs, with simpler and more agile processes and new products in areas such as health, home, cyber risk and enterprises.
‘Global Wealth’ will be another priority growth area in this strategic cycle, he highlighted. In Spain, BBVA has 201,000 private banking and wealth management clients, an 84% satisfaction rate in this segment and 46% more bankers than in December 2020. Looking ahead, the bank will continue to expand its value proposition thanks to AI. AI will also make it possible to extend advisory capabilities and simplify servicing and administrative tasks.
AI, the key accelerator of the new phase
BBVA’s country manager placed particular emphasis on the fact that AI will cut across this strategy. Across the bank as a whole, this technology will help simplify and automate processes and develop a more robust, efficient and scalable model, he said.
Customers will remain at the heart of this transformation, with their experience central to every decision, Peio Belausteguigoitia stressed. He noted that AI expands and enhances what the bank can do for its customers, enabling increasingly personalized service for each individual and company and helping deliver a unique experience.
This means evolving from propositions designed for groups of customers towards an increasingly individualized relationship, capable of using each person’s interactions and needs to provide responses that are more relevant to their specific circumstances. The goal is for technology to make customers’ day-to-day relationship with the bank easier without losing the specialization and more technical advice they need when required, he added.
“We believe we are on the right path to continue building a new bank. This transformation will have a significant impact on both the way we work and the way we engage with our customers, resulting in a significant improvement in their experience,” BBVA’s country manager in Spain said.