BBVA and Red Electrica Corporation have become the first businesses in the world to deliver a syndicated loan using blockchain. The €150m deal, granted by BBVA, BNP Paribas and MUFG, was reached in record speed using BBVA’s proprietary platform- which is powered by distributed ledger technology.

From birthdays to Buffett and blockchain, this week had a little bit of everything in fintech. Check out the headlines below for what you might have missed.

At BBVA Open Summit, Ricardo Forcano, BBVA’s Global Head of Talent and Culture; and Rob Brown, Global CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) at BBVA, chatted with the representatives of two startups that are working to leverage blockchain and AI technologies to enable new decentralized ways of working.

CreditGate24, a company that specializes in financing to individuals and companies, has been chosen as the best Swiss startup in the final of BBVA Open Talent Switzerland held in Zürich. The fintech will represent Switzerland in the global final to be held October 16-17 in Madrid.

This open-source blockchain platform has made its way into different sectors of the economy and aims to become the blockchain technology standard in the world of business. BBVA is an official member of the Hyperledger consortium and has used its technological platform to manage blockchain-powered corporate loans.

Some companies are now working to incorporate blockchain technology into smartphones. A cell phone that incorporates these characteristics could become the most secure on the market. This would be possible thanks to blockchain’s intrinsic security provisions.

The tools known as cryptowallets allow the storage and exchange of cryptocurrencies, and are becoming increasingly relevant in the context of the cryptoeconomy and blockchain boom. It is important to recognize their characteristics and differences, as not all offer the same levels of security.

Advances in technology contribute to economic progress and have a direct, long-term impact on society’s well-being. Clearly, digital transformation creates opportunities that improve both our lives and our businesses. BBVA shares this view: the bank has made a commitment to new technologies such as blockchain, which allow it to offer innovative financing approaches to its corporate clients.

Blockchain is one of the most disruptive new technologies in the world of finance. But currently its use in the sector is focused mainly on the underlying technology – Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)- to create applications or redesign processes rather than in creating cryptoassets. The reason? Blockchain applications have the potential to improve the efficiency, transparency and traceability of processes while cryptoassets are volatile.

A new cryptocurrency available without the internet represents one of the first examples of how to implement blockchain technology in the absence of a decent digital infrastructure.

Having successfully carried out the first pilots in the world of a loan and a corporate credit facility using blockchain, BBVA has signed a new loan with ACS using this technology. The deal shows that BBVA Corporate & Investment Banking is continuing to focus on an innovative financing model for its corporate clients.

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?

Using a smart contract will always make sense when there is a defined workflow that needs to be managed according to certain rules or to ensure the fulfillment of certain previously agreed conditions.

The Spanish National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), BME and a group of financial institutions formed by Banco Santander, BBVA, BNP Paribas, CaixaBank, Commerzbank and Société Générale, have been collaborating over the past year on a project called Fast Track Listing (FTL), which is based on blockchain technology.

The two companies have just used the blockchain technology to renew a credit line worth €325 million, the first initiative of this collaboration.

BBVA CEO Carlos Torres Vila opened the seminar in Santander organized by the International Menéndez Pelayo University and the Spanish Association of Economic News Journalists (APIE), which this year puts the spotlight on blockchain. BBVA’s CEO lauded digital transformation as a way to improve people’s lives. Additionally, he released the news that in May, BBVA’s digital sales reached 40% of the total, and that the Group will begin testing the negotiation and contracting of syndicated loans using blockchain. Finally, he stated that technological development fosters long-term economic progress and social well-being, which requires collaboration between public and private institutions.

Consensus, the Coindesk conference held a week ago in New York, once again showed expectations generated by blockchain and cryptoassets are at their height. More than 8,400 professionals and investors attended the event, which last year had 2,200 visitors.

Forrester analyst Martha Bennett shared with BBVA her view on the current uses of and potential of blockchain. According to this expert, this technology is comparable to the mobile phone and the internet in the 1990s when already “usable” but far off reaching full potential.

Around the 1960s the U.S. Army coined the name soft skills to refer to abilities other than those involved in working with machines. Military instructors realized the need for other abilities in the profesional development of its technicians and engineers.

BBVA has successfully completed the first global corporate loan transaction using blockchain technology from the negotiation of the deal to its signing, in line with their close collaboration to leverage cutting-edge technologies to streamline business processes.

DLT and blockchain share a conceptual origin: they are digitalized and decentralized log books of record. Often the terms are confused, but they are differentiated by an unshared set of specific features.

Carlos Kuchkovsky, CTO of New Digital Businesses at BBVA, has been elected for the second year running as a member of the Governing Board of Hyperledger, one of the major partnerships formed to promote the use of blockchain in different business and technology sectors.

José Manuel González-Páramo, BBVA’s head of Global Economics, Regulation and Public Affairs, presented the bank’s blockchain strategy at the IIF’s meeting in Washington before regulatory officials of the finance sector. A strategy based on a pillar called the three E’s: Execution, Ecosystem, and Experience.

Close to 40% of the world’s population, some two billion people, do not have access to a bank account. The mobile phone is starting to alleviate the problem and blockchain could be another big driver.

In an interview with Spanish daily ‘El País’ from Silicon Valley, BBVA Chief Executive Officer says that “data belongs to customers and can only be used with their consent.” In comments to ‘El País’ Carlos Torres Vila also advances that BBVA is exploring the use of blockchain in corporate loans. This technology has the potential “to add a lot of transparency, efficiency and immutability, and offers a wide array of other possible uses.”

The agreement, signed by 22 countries, will serve as a vehicle for cooperation among member states on the exchange of experiences and know-how required in the creation of blockchain applications within Europe.

BBVA backed Garanti Bank, in cooperation with Turkish Central Bank and TUBITAK, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, has sponsored the first Blockchain Workshop in Turkey.

Distributed ledger technologies (DLT) are providing the breeding ground for a new type of apps that do not run on servers, but on decentralized networks. In a recent report, BBVA Research takes a look at the potential implications of this new generation of apps (DApps) and their role in shaping the future of Internet.

Fair-trade coffee, quality guarantee, ecological tomatoes… consumers read the labels on the things they eat. But is there any way of checking that what they say is correct? In order to do so, you would need a register of the processes to which the product has been submitted, something blockchain can do.

Digital identity is the online version of an individual’s physical identity.  It consists of all of the individual´s personal data that is available online —not just an email or physical address, but also pictures, banking info, shopping preferences. This identity is not uniform, as we share different attributes in different platforms. In other words, we don’t share the same type of information on LinkedIn and Facebook, for example.

Ethereum is a platform developed in open-source code that uses blockchain technology and has the capacity to create and execute so-called ‘smart contracts,’ which allow making secure and efficient transactions without intermediation.

Brussels attempts to organize member initiatives through the creation of the Blockchain Observatory—a technology the EU has invested in since 2013 through its Research and Development programs.

‘Blockchain’ is still at level 0 in the video game industry, but it has a promising future.

E-everything: Big tech companies now offer BaaS (Blockchain as a Service)—a way to access blockchain technology without incurring huge costs.

The year 2018 looks to be a crucial one for the entire blockchain ecosystem and distributed ledger technologies (DLT). Beyond the speculative rage that cryptocurrencies have ignited, this year is expected to bring a certain maturity to the market. Here are seven predictions from three BBVA experts regarding the challenges of the new decentralized economy, featured in the specialized news website Criptonoticias.

Many sectors are already exploring the potential applications of Blockchain, a technology that according to experts could have an impact comparable to that of the internet. Beyond the famous cryptocurrencies, there is no longer any doubt that the uses of this technology can improve society, and several social enterprises are demonstrating it through interesting projects.

The global finance industry is marching to the beat of innovation, especially in retail banking, fund transfers and commercial banking, Argentina is no exception, according to PwC’s Global FinTech Report.

The number of companies and investors betting on blockchain continues to grow. But how did it come about? What was needed to develop bitcoin, its first practical application? And who were the pioneers of blockchain?

The most impressive thing at this year’s Blockchain Summit in London was the enthusiasm and wide array of use cases for blockchain on show. Starting with its origins of digital currency and current evolution to ICOs (the abbreviation for initial coin offering) to applications in the energy and real estate sectors, there is seemingly no problem too big that it can’t be solved via blockchain technology.

BBVA, in collaboration with Wave, conducted the first pilot that uses blockchain to automate the electronic submission of documents in an import-export transaction between Europe and Latin America.  Thanks to Wave’s solution, which uses Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and blockchain, BBVA was able to reduce the time required to send, verify and authorize an international trade transaction, which normally takes from seven to ten days, to just 2.5 hours.

Latin America will be one of the leaders of the global economy. The digital transformation has been one of the keys to this reduction in poverty and improvement in social indicators. But how has it helped? One example is digital financial inclusion.

What is bitcoin? What do the terms node, mining and hash mean? Following are the 10 key terms from the world of blockchain technology that you need to master.

These new technological tools have the potential to improve all kinds of economic exchanges and open the door to new ways of doing business that today are unimaginable.

The finance industry will survive the disruption in the sector, but only a few banks will be able to offer the best customer experience, adapt to the new ecosystem and successfully achieve their digital transformation. “Competition with the fintech companies makes us better and stronger,” said José Manuel González-Páramo, BBVA’s Executive Member of the Board, Head of Global Economics, Regulation and Public Affairs, during the European Central Bank´s Forum on Banking Supervision.

In a few years, we may not be paying with cash, cards or even with smartphones, but rather, by car. Vehicle connectivity will change the way we manage time and money, but a number of problems still need to be addressed.

The revolution in the automobile industry isn’t just about driverless cars. Blockchain technology will also have an impact on the sector, especially on the internal processes of companies.

The main Spanish banking, energy and telecommunications companies, among other sectors, have established Alastria, the world’s first regulated national network based on blockchain. This non-profit consortium will develop the Ditributed Ledger Technology (DTL), which is set to become the new data exchange ecosystem and which will enable and accelerate the digital transformation of different industrial and business sectors in the coming years thanks to its agility, veracity, security and efficiency.