Carlos Torres Vila: “Europe’s True Competitive Advantage Will Come from Companies’ Ability to Incorporate AI at Scale”
BBVA’s Chair stated this Friday that Europe remains one of the world’s largest economies, with significant strengths, but needs to increase investment in order to compete globally. During the annual conference of the Spanish Banking Association (AEB), the Spanish Federation of Savings Banks (CECA) and the Credit Cooperative Association (Unacc), Carlos Torres Vila noted that the EU does not have a savings problem, but rather a challenge in channeling those savings into productive projects. To achieve this, it is necessary to simplify regulation and complete financial integration. He also highlighted the role of artificial intelligence (AI) as a driver of Europe’s competitiveness. The true competitive advantage, he explained, will come from the ability of European companies to incorporate AI at scale and translate it into productivity, innovation and growth.
Carlos Torres Vila shared the panel with Gonzalo Gortázar, CEO of CaixaBank, and Héctor Grisi, CEO of Banco Santander. The session was moderated by Alejandra Kindelán, president of the AEB, and Antonio Romero, General Manager of CECA.
BBVA’s Chair noted that speaking about banking competitiveness is speaking about European competitiveness, which is essential for prosperity and for maintaining the European social model. Carlos Torres Vila highlighted that the European Union has talent, industrial capacity, a high level of savings, leading companies and a strong financial system, but lacks investment. “The world is moving very fast, and we risk falling behind and losing our autonomy if we do not invest enough,” he said. According to Torres Vila, the technology race, the energy transition, economic security and the new geopolitical reality are driving investment needs to unprecedented levels, and investment is the main engine of growth and per capita income.
In this context, BBVA’s Chair stated that Europe does not have a savings problem, but rather a problem of channeling those savings into productive projects. “Europe needs regulatory simplification that allows more capital to be mobilized toward productive activities and enables banks to be more competitive,” he said.
Carlos Torres Vila referred to the obstacles preventing European banking integration. In this regard, he stated that BBVA’s experience in Germany and Italy demonstrates that building pan-European banking models is possible, but remains unnecessarily complex. BBVA has successfully developed digital operations in both countries: it now has more than 900,000 customers in Italy and exceeds 100,000 in Germany. However, he said, cross-border expansion faces frictions that prevent full advantage from being taken of the benefits of scale, because while regulation is largely common, supervisory interpretations and national operational requirements continue to differ. “We cannot roll out our offering in every country at the same speed and with the same efficiency because, in some cases, we even have to adapt to different interpretations of the same regulation,” he said. By contrast, financial integration would help boost European competitiveness. “What is lacking is confidence in European management of risks and resources, and a shift from managing financial stability at the national level to managing it at the European level,” he stressed.
Carlos Torres Vila stated that AI represents a technological revolution that is more far-reaching than previous ones and is advancing very rapidly. Europe, he said, may not lead the development of large models, but it still has a major opportunity in adoption. The true competitive advantage will come from the ability of European companies and institutions to incorporate AI at scale, industrialize it and translate it into productivity, innovation and growth. “The advantage will belong to those who adopt this technology sooner. Those who adopt it first will increasingly pull ahead of the rest,” he explained. This requires investment and a greater capacity to channel savings toward productive projects that will enable Europe to remain at the forefront of adopting this technology, thereby improving competitiveness.
In this regard, BBVA starts from a position of strength and has the opportunity to lead a new stage in the financial industry: building a better bank for customers in the age of artificial intelligence. The Group has four lines of action in the field of AI: adoption, with more than 100,000 employees having access to AI tools; strategy, with eight major workstreams covering the bank’s entire value chain, from customer service and sales to risk management, software development and operations; industrialization of the creation, deployment and management of AI agents; and working with the right partners, such as Google, AWS and, especially, OpenAI. In addition, BBVA has created a new global area with the aim of driving AI transformation across the entire Group.