In February 2019, BBVA Compass announced that the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta rated it “Outstanding” for CRA performance for its most recent examination period. This three-part series will take a detailed look at the key efforts behind that rating in lending, investment and community giving.

As part of its transformation strategy, BBVA has acquired and invested in a number of different tech companies in recent years.

76 percent of Spanish enterprise businesses and 68 percent of SMEs will increase their investment in Latin America in 2019. Spanish investors see the best prospects in Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico, according to the latest report ‘Spanish Investment Landscape in Latin America‘, which was prepared by IE University, in collaboration with Llorente & Cuenca and Iberia, and presented at Casa de América in Madrid.

In 2018, a significant series of external factors caused investors to lose confidence, which resulted in increased volatility in the markets. Still, for the investment team at BBVA Asset Management, the current “positive economic cycle” has not yet reached its end: the world is not on the edge of another global economic crisis.

The 9th Edition of Spain Investors Day united 43 listed companies and major investors in a forum that discussed socially responsible investment for the first time. BBVA participated in the round table discussion on the topic.

The previous year has come to a close, and with it comes reflection on what 2018 brought. However, a look forward to 2019 can also have its advantages.

BBVA’s investment arm, Propel Venture Partners, has led the latest funding round into class leading invisible payments business Grabango.

Professional financing is essential for the survival of startups. Attracting funding requires being very well aware of what investors want and need.

BBVA Wealth Solutions, Inc. (BWS) today announced the launch of its newest digital investment services product, SmartPath Digital Portfolios, a new digital advice solution designed to help investors achieve their financial goals. SmartPath Digital Portfolios—powered by BNY Mellon’s Pershing—delivers an engaging user interface, along with a selection of managed account options, to provide an optimal advisory investment experience and help investment advisors achieve increased efficiencies and scale.

Anne-Joëlle Viguier-Galley is BBVA Compass’ Chief of Equity and Alternative Investments for the bank’s Global Wealth team. She also doubles as the Chief Investment Strategist for BBVA Wealth Solutions, Inc., the bank’s investment adviser affiliate. 

Luisa Gómez Bravo, Global Head of Investment & Cost Management BBVA Group.

Luisa joined BBVA almost 20 years ago. During this time, she has held various positions in the bank, moving up to become the main financial head overseeing the Group’s investments and spending and, specifically the ‘Single Development Agenda’  (SDA).

She studied at ICADE and graduated with degrees in law and business administration. She lived in London for several years where she worked for American investment banks. Her view of BBVA is that it has always given her the opportunity to learn and develop. “That’s my main motivation.” she states.

Passionate about her job, she gets excited when she talks about the new way of working – using agile methodologies in small, multidisciplinary teams with quarterly product deliveries that enable fast results. “It’s exciting because your effort becomes tangible” she remarks when interviewed about the implications of the new management approach, which prioritizes resources on a global level according to the impact each project could have on BBVA’s business.

BBVA’s venture capital investment arm, Propel Venture Partners, is participating in a new funding round by an app-based business dedicated to helping U.S. workers with flexible working lives.

The financing of startups through ICOs using blockchain technology changes the concept of a unicorn. Is it the same to reach a valuation level of $1 billion in this way as through traditional rounds of investment?

Investment in infrastructure is crucial for sustainable growth and development inclusion. However, in Latin America there is a gap between supply and demand for such projects, both in terms of physical and digital infrastructure. To offset this lack of investment, private financing needs to be encouraged.

After receiving all necessary approvals, BBVA has completed the £85.4m investment into Atom, announced in March this year. With this transaction, BBVA increases its stake in UK’s first bank built exclusively for smartphone or tablet to 39%.

Maria Holmes has seen quite a lot in her career, starting off as a stock broker and working in the financial industry for the past thirty years.

The very concept of venture capital makes clear the possibility of losing everything invested in projects that don’t go ahead. However, there are investors with an almost flawless track record. Who are they?

BBVA’s independent capital venture firm, Propel Venture Partners, has made its first investment in Brazil in neobank Neon.

The fintech sector attracted $31 billion dollars in investment last year, with growth in the sector underpinned by venture capital, accelerators and consolidated companies. BBVA maintains an active strategy of investment, acquisition, tie-ups and the incubation of new companies in the sector.

BBVA to invest $50 million into Sinovation Fund IV, a Chinese venture capital fund run by Sinovation Ventures and led by Dr. Kai-Fu Lee.

The global economy has changed significantly over the past few years, impacting decisively on the style and manner in which investors manage their wealth.

Alfonso Gómez joined the BBVA Group in 1994 and was appointed to head the Swiss branch in 2014. Born in Segovia, Spain, he has had an extensive career, holding positions on several continents. Since his arrival at Switzerland, he has been working to develop the best customer experience, based on a high-value offering and next-generation digital tools.

Many people around the world choose to place part of their savings in investments outside their home country, in order to diversify their holdings. That’s why they put part of their capital in international financial centers. Switzerland is one of them.

Investor angels, or business angels, are people who invest their money in the initial phase of startups, in exchange for a participation in capital. They also usually carry out the role of a mentor and offer their consent and experience to entrepreneurs.

Putting up a new calendar and starting a new year means taking stock of past achievements and setting new goals. In the area of Responsible Banking, BBVA is ready to take on new challenges, in order to continue making strides in responsible financing, digital transformation, human rights and other important areas.

In the technology field, the presence of women as either entrepreneurs or investors is still very limited. However, there are more and more initiatives that view the women-technology combination as an opportunity.

The objective is not an easy one to achieve: making sure that the products that reach the market are the ones customers need and demand. The task is even more complicated if production must be speeded up, in order to reach the market before the competition. Tech companies were pioneers in facing this challenge; they did so by using agile methods, a way of working that has played a key role in the success of companies like Google and Spotify, and which BBVA has made a fundamental tool in accelerating its digital transformation.

BBVA and BBVA Bancomer are piloting an FX matching application developed by Calypso Technology, a leading provider of cloud based cross asset trading software solutions for the financial markets, and enterprise software firm R3. The application, which runs on R3’s Corda platform and is facilitated by Calypso’s cloud services, has already been used by the two banks to match a test FX trade.

The words “wealth” and “tech” have come together to give rise to a new generation of financial technology companies that create digital solutions to transform the investment and asset management industry.

Investors and entrepreneurs will once again come together at the South Summit in Madrid, an encounter that has been a proven success in previous years. BBVA will have a distinguished participation in the event.

In the United States, there are already $20 billion under management by robot advisors and for the moment, the numbers testify to the success. Improving their knowledge of the investor could turn robo-advisors into a financial tool of the first order.

UK Challenger bank Atom is making its first move overseas by beginning to offer savers in Germany access to its products.

The app-based bank, which is part owned by BBVA, has partnered with Deposit Solutions in order to launch fixed-rate products to customers in the country.

BBVA has sold one of the largest loan portfolios in the Spanish market to an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. The portfolio, which has a gross nominal value of nearly 600 million euros, consists of loans from real estate developments distributed throughout Spain, with the largest number in Andalusia, Madrid and Catalonia.

BBVA is one of the 40 institutions that invested in the financial technology innovator R3, which just completed two of three tranches in its Series A fundraising round. It raised a total of 107 million. With this investment, BBVA seeks to reinforce its commitment to R3, the largest consortium of global financial institutions collaborating to develop an industry platform and commercial applications for DLT.

BBVA’s has issued perpetual debt eventually convertible into shares at the cheapest price of all operations launched by Spanish issuers for this type of product. The issuing of €500 million of contingent convertible bonds, or ‘CoCos’ (also known as AT1) took place at a very attractive price, with a coupon of 5.875%.

One of the first projects BBVA Compass pursued after the bank made its $11 billion commitment to low- to moderate-income communities in late 2014 has come online and put 128 low-income Austin families in green homes zoned to some of the area’s best schools.

Technology is redefining how we bank – from mobile apps to online account management – we increasingly use digital means to make our money and data work harder for us.

BBVA is leading the pack in terms of technology applied to finance – from electronic payments in day-to-day transactions with BBVA Wallet, to big data management. But on the horizon has appeared the (pen)ultimate frontier that banks will need to cross, one that has a sci-fi ring to it: the robotization of banking activities.

Senior executives from BBVA got the chance to meet with some of the USA’s most innovative and forward thinking financial technology businesses this week at the first tech summit hosted by BBVA-backed venture capital firm Propel Venture Partners.

BBVA Compass’ investment in a newly constructed affordable housing project in Fort Worth was held up as a model of public and private cooperation last week during a VIP tour of the facility.

BBVA Compass is relying on a variety of vehicles — including $16.3 million in federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit equity, a $17.2 million construction loan, $5.7 million in permanent debt, $1.2 million from the City of Fort Worth and $700,000 from the City of Fort Worth Housing Finance Corporation — to finance the 140-unit development known as Columbia at Renaissance Square.

The first regulatory sandbox, or testing environment, is already taking its first steps. Rolled out in the UK last year, it has just announced the 18 startups, with projects that range from finance, to debt management, insurtech or blockchain, that have been admitted to take part in the pioneering development program.

A bank’s markets division, also known as its Treasury, is part of its wholesale banking business. It is a highly specialized area that seeks to meet institutional and corporate customers’ investment and risk coverage needs. The retail banking area serves individual customers and also receives support from the markets area to design and manage products and manage the associated risks.

Thousands are drawn to virtual reality and global tech giants are starting to get on board.

From an app to tell stories using fiction formats to a car insurance app to pay per mile traveled, startups are not lowering their guard in order to gain a foothold on the tech grid.

Propel Venture Partners, the San Francisco-based venture capital (VC) partnership in which BBVA is an investor, today announced its investment in Hixme– its sixth investment since the establishment of the U.S. fund in February this year.

Anthony Thomson, founder of Atom Bank, is absolutely clear about his career goal: He wants to redefine customers’ everyday relationship with money, he wants to improve it. He is aware that the financial sector is in the midst of a revolution marked by an unstoppable wave of disruption. “The first change is that money is data and data are the main product of our business” he said during his address in South Summit, where he unveiled three essential challenges that all companies must face to survive in this paradigm shift.

Javier Malagón, CFO of BBVA Bancomer, the most profitable bank in Mexico and the leader of the country’s financial sector, presented the bank’s strategy and main financial data at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference today.

Apollo 11 was a milestone for solving complex problems. Hence the name moonshots: projects that propose radical ideas for tackling major problems by using futuristic technology. Their capacity for innovation has just started.

The recent report, The Business of Financial Inclusion: Insights from Banks in Emerging Markets represents a new endeavor for the Institute of International Finance (IIF). It is based on the insights of 24 executives in charge of financial inclusion, a topic of growing interest.