Carlos Torres Vila: “BBVA Faces 2026 With Confidence to Continue Growing and Leading Banking in the Age of Artificial Intelligence"

In his address, Carlos Torres Vila took stock of an “exceptional” 2025, which marks the starting point of BBVA’s 2025-2029 strategic plan. Beyond financial results, the Chair underscored that the year was defined by the bank’s positive impact on clients, employees, shareholders and society at large. Throughout the year, BBVA continued to expand its customer base, reaching a new record in acquisition: more than 11.5 million new customers, with two out of three joining through digital channels. This brings the total active customer base to over 81 million. “Each new customer marks the beginning of a relationship. A relationship built on trust,” he said.

Lending continued to grow strongly in 2025, at a rate of 16 percent, supporting thousands of personal and business projects. This growth reflects the bank’s role as a key driver of economic development in its main markets. Likewise, BBVA maintained its commitment to a transition toward a more sustainable economy. In 2025, the bank channeled over €134 billion into sustainable business,  of which €30.2 billion were channeled to social initiatives.

The Chair also emphasized the role of the people who make up BBVA. In his words, this is “an innovative and ambitious team,” dedicated to serving customers: “Thanks to their dedication, 2025 was the best year in our history.”

BBVA accelerates value creation for shareholders

From a financial standpoint, BBVA posted a record net attributable profit of €10.5 billion in 2025, with profitability (measured by ROTE) at 19.3 percent. For Carlos Torres Vila, these figures reflect the strength of the bank’s business model and the progress executing the strategic plan: “Yet another year, we stand out for something that defines us: our unique ability to combine growth and profitability.”

This performance also translates into clear value creation for BBVA shareholders, with increasing returns and an excellent stock evolution in 2025. “We are proposing the distribution of more than €5.2 billion, that is 50 percent of the annual profit. Specifically, we are proposing a cash dividend of €0.60 per share in April which, together with the €0.32 paid last November, raises the total dividend to €0.92 per share—the highest in our history,” he noted. This dividend represents a 31 percent increase compared to the previous year.

“The annual dividend has tripled since 2021, driven by significant increases year after year. In addition, the bank’s stock has seen strong performance, with its price more than doubling over the past year,” he added.

Additionally, BBVA continues to make progress on its nearly €4 billion extraordinary share buyback program¹ announced in December, of which it has already completed a first tranche of €1.5 billion. BBVA announced today a second tranche of said program, for up to €1 billion, with execution set to begin on March 23.

Including dividends and share price appreciation, since January 2019, the total value for BBVA shareholders has multiplied almost six-fold, well above the performance of European and Spanish banks, whose shareholders have seen their investment multiply approximately 3.5-fold.

An increasingly uncertain and fragmented environment

The BBVA Chair underscored that these results are especially remarkable in such a complex international climate. Geopolitical fragmentation, armed conflicts and the technological acceleration are reshaping the global economy. Despite the uncertainty, the economy is showing better-than-expected resilience. BBVA Research estimates point to sustained growth in the countries where BBVA operates (2.4 percent in Spain, 1.8 percent in Mexico, 4 percent in Türkiye and 3 percent in South American countries), although an escalation of the conflict in Iran could negatively impact these figures if the closure of Strait of Hormuz persists.

But there are also “new opportunities such as artificial intelligence and the energy transition that will be key economic drivers over the next few years,” he said.

To successfully navigate this environment, BBVA has defined a clear roadmap as part of its strategic plan: to put the customers’ perspective at the heart of everything the bank does in order to better understand their needs and deliver increasingly relevant and tailored solutions; to grow especially in sustainability and the enterprise segment; and to steer all decisions toward value and capital generation, boosting businesses with low capital consumption, such as insurance, asset management and payments. All this supported by two key levers: artificial intelligence and a talented, ambitious team with a strong customer focus.

BBVA aims to lead banking in the age of artificial intelligence

During his presentation, Carlos Torres Vila emphasized the role of artificial intelligence in the financial sector in particular. In this regard, he anticipates that “artificial intelligence represents an enormous technological transformation, occurring at an unprecedented pace.”

BBVA is rolling out an ambitious strategy to incorporate this technology across all areas of the bank, from customer advisory to risk management and software development. “And we are doing it with a very clear goal in mind: to better serve our clients. A supportive bank that is more anticipatory, more personalized and closer to the client,” he stressed. “We were pioneers in the digital transformation, with tremendous success, and once again, we are going to lead banking in the age of artificial intelligence.”

To sum up, “we will continue to support our customers in their drive to go further, delivering value to our shareholders and generating a positive impact on the societies where we operate,” Carlos Torres Vila concluded.

Growth, efficiency and profitability

Next, BBVA’s Chief Executive Officer Onur Genç stressed that, beyond the results achieved in the year, what truly matters is that “over the past four years, we have more than doubled our profit, with significant growth year after year. This demonstrates our ability to deliver results on a sustained basis,” he added.

BBVA stands out for the strong momentum of its lending activity. Taking 2021 as a reference point, the Group’s lending had increased by 43 percent by the end of 2025, while the bank’s main European competitors recorded an average 5 percent growth during the same period. For the BBVA CEO, this performance separates BBVA from its peers in Europe: “BBVA is by far the bank with the highest credit growth.” 

He also stressed the bank’s sector-leading efficiency levels (39 percent vs an average of 52 percent for European banks) and strong performance in terms of profitability (ROTE of 19.3 percent vs an average of 13.3 percent for European competitors). This combination of growth, efficiency and profitability is one of the bank’s key differentiating factors compared with the rest of the sector. Onur Genç also emphasized the bank’s prudent risk management and its solid capital position which “will allow us to continue growing with ambition in the future.” In his view, this performance is reflected in the BBVA’s valuation as the eurozone’s second-largest bank by market capitalization. “This evolution is a reflection of our results, our strong strategy and our business model, as well as the market confidence in our future performance,” he explained.

Regarding the contribution of BBVA franchises, he noted that all of them made positive contributions to the Group’s overall results, and BBVA continues to gain market share in its main markets.

In closing, Onur Genç paid tribute to the team’s role in the bank’s strong performance. “Ours is a business of people serving people,” he said. BBVA has “more than 127,000 professionals committed and united by our purpose and values,” he said.

¹The remaining amount of the share buyback program (approximately €1.5 billion resulting from the difference of the total of nearly €4 billion minus the €1.5 billion already executed, and €1 billion of this second tranche) is subject to the approval from the governing bodies.