If variety is the spice of life, then consider the inaugural BBVA USA Global Wealth Advisory Council a well-seasoned collection of wealth management professionals. A council made up of sales and support professionals in the BBVA USA Global Wealth and BBVA Securities, Inc. teams, the group’s main focus in its first year has been to brainstorm and cultivate unique solutions and collaboratively recommend constructive suggestions for improvement across the board.

Quality Funds, BBVA’s platform specialized in international funds, was named the best pan-European platform specialized in investment funds, according to the prestigious 2020 report by Platforum.

“We are in an extraordinary time for the asset management industry,” says Jaime Martínez, global head of asset allocation at BBVA Asset Management. “We are witnessing a new landscape, characterized by regulation and technological disruption.” Martinez reveals five trends that are transforming the world of asset management.

BBVA customers now use digital channels to make 51 percent of their investment fund transactions. Both the bank’s web site and its mobile application have various tools that help customers make decisions about their savings and investments.

Atom bank, the UK’s first bank built exclusively for mobile and the UK’s most trusted bank on Trustpilot, has raised £50m in a fundraising round with participation from BBVA, Toscafund, Woodford Patient Capital Trust and funds advised by Perscitus LLP.

In response to the growing demand for passive investment instruments, BBVA Asset Management is encouraging institutional investors to use its range of passively managed index funds, called Bindex. This product line facilitates efficient portfolio creation thanks to the simple nature and low cost of the instruments.

Under a borrowing program framework, Garanti Bank has received in excess of $1.3 billion in financing from international markets. The funding, as stipulated by the program framework, will be provided under two separate financing contracts and over four different tranches with 367-day, 2-year-and-one-day, and 7-year term loans.

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.

Since June, asset management customers of BBVA in Switzerland can go online to contract any type of financial asset adapted to their risk profile. With “Click & Trade,” the bank advances its digitalization process, providing solutions that address its customers’ needs.

Fund managers are easing their way into the digital world but will have to up the ante as customer experience and customized offers become a must for their survival.

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?

Kai-Fu Lee, founder of the venture capital fund, Sinovation Ventures, is as popular in China as Elon Musk is in the west. With 50 million followers on “China’s Twitter,” the social network, Weibo, he was dubbed by Wired as the indisputable rock star of China’s technology scene.

BBVA Compass assembled Albuquerque leaders Thursday to celebrate the bank’s $2.8 million in equity equivalent investments in Homewise and the New Mexico Community Development Loan Fund, two organizations dedicated to creating opportunities for low- to moderate-income families in the city.

Over the past three years, the asset allocation team of BBVA Asset Management has overhauled its investment process to bring as much objectivity as possible to decision-making when building a portfolio. Based on the principles of behavioral economics, the new process aims to determine how the power of the mind affects financial decisions.

As of today, EU banks are required to comply with the new relevant regulatory framework on markets and financial institutions, based on the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, (MiFID II), and its corresponding regulation, MiFIR.

BBVA Global Wealth held the second edition of its Next Generations Madrid program, intended for second generations of Private Banking customers. The purpose of the program is to bring value to customers’ families, providing them with a specific educational experience.

Argentina, Peru, Colombia and Chile are examples of BBVA’s commitment to digitization and to offering the most advanced services for customers in the all markets where the bank operates. Chatbots, online investment funds and corporate leasing functions are all evidence of the bank’s progress in Latin America.

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 European Commission has published a legislative proposal to create a sort of European Securities and Exchange Commission – that is, a European agency that would centralize some of the stock exchange supervision competencies of the national authorities. Once it is approved, part of the activity that takes place on the European exchanges would come under control of the new European authority.

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.

Speaking this morning at the 22nd annual meeting organized by Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London, Chief Financial Officer Jaime Sáenz de Tejada explained some of the key aspects BBVA’s strategy to investors.  “BBVA is well positioned for the new growth cycle”, thanks to a solid balance sheet and capital position, as a result of the company’s efforts in recent years, its geographic diversification and forward-looking transformation strategy.

This form of funding, which allows small business to reach millions via blockchain and cryptocurrencies, is creating a dangerous bubble driven by speculation.

BBVA has recently joined the Singapore-based Capital and Credit Risk Manager (CCRM) platform as a full member bank. CCRM is a Digital Market Place providing a secondary market for trade and working capital risks, owned by Tin Hill Capital and supported with a grant from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Financial Sector Development Fund.

The USS Constitution is back to her former glory. After a restoration process that took two years and $12 million worth of copper cladding, wooden plank repair and gun carrier restoration, among other refurbishments, the oldest commissioned floating naval vessel first launched in 1797 was put back into Boston Harbor this week.

BBVA Group garners excellent results in a number of categories of the prestigious Extel Survey’s 2017 edition.  Jaime Sáenz de Tejada named Spain’s best chief financial officer.

We have already seen what the foreign exchange market is and how it works, as well as different exchange rate systems. Here, we will analyze the broad range of participants that engage in a market that, in average, churns around 5 trillion dollars on a daily basis.

It is the concept in vogue among startups. All of them are trying, with greater or less success, to get money from investors, and a funding round is precisely one of the ways to do this.

After a turbulent end of 2015 for Latin American emerging markets, fuelled by the collapse of commodity prices, the first half of 2016 has been quite different. Since January, investment funds operating in Latin America have reported solid profitability ratios, in many cases above 10%.

Propel Venture Partners, the independent venture capital firm in which BBVA has invested $250 million, has announced that it is the lead investor in a funding round for Guideline, an online 401 (k) platform in the US. The investment, part of a $7 million Series A round, is one of four made by Propel since its foundation in February and the first in which Propel has been the lead investor.

The digital transformation ripples across all areas of the financial system. In the investment portfolio management segment, algorithm based platforms are starting to challenge more traditional advisers. Are they an opportunity or a risk for the ecosystem?

Sovereign Wealth Funds are state-owned investment vehicles that control a portfolio consisting of national and international financial assets. The capital that these institutions manage is essential for the economies as it allows them to mitigate economic shocks; safeguard the wealth of future generations; make key investments for the country’s development; pay pensions; or maximize the profitability of a percentage of the country’s international reserves – generally the surplus over the level deemed optimal – which are usually managed following a capital preservation approach.

Responsible banking models are drawing more and more interest from specialized analysts and institutional investors.

Market downfalls at the beginning of the year have put investors on guard. The sharp decline in oil prices and questions over the Chinese economy leave their mark on the global economic outlook. BBVA Asset Management expects to see moderate growth in the global economy in 2016 but suggests caution when building portfolios due to increased risk. Diversification and hedging are necessary.

BBVA announces an increase in its financial technology (‘fintech’) fund to $250m and a partnership with Propel Venture Partners (Propel).  BBVA will invest its $250m in Propel’s funds as a limited partner, and Propel will manage the investment independently in a move designed to ensure the capital continues to be invested in the best digital financial services startups.

There was a sharp drop in investment in VC-backed companies in late 2015. According to the global quarterly report on VC trends published by KPMG International and CB Insights, investment in the fourth quarter of 2015 stood at 27.2 billion US dollars, with 1,742 deals at the global level –representing a 30% decline in funding. This was also the lowest quarterly level of deals to be registered since the final months of 2013.

A socially responsible investor is someone who takes ethical, social and environmental considerations in its investment decisions. Without compromising the profitability of the investment, the responsible investor seeks to create long-term value, supporting businesses that can bring benefits to society. Although institutional investors are the most active in this type of investments, based on the interest shown by millennials, the investment opportunities in the segment could very well lead to wealth transfers of over 4% of the world’s GDP by mid-century.

BBVA is the early-bird Spanish bank in the debt markets in 2016. Once again, it is the first Spanish bank to make an offering on the market in euros of 1 billion euros in 5-year senior bonds. The issue has been very favorably received. International demand exceeded 2.4 billion euros, which has enabled the bank to offer at more competitive prices than initially forecast.

Before making an investment or buying a savings product (e.g. investment fund or pension plan), we first need to determine our risk profile.

How will the largest economies evolve over the next ten years? What yields may be expected from the main financial assets in that period of time? These are the two questions that the BBVA Asset Management’s strategy team has taken into consideration to elaborate a financial plan that allows to properly gauge the strategic asset portfolios it manages for its customers through different vehicles (investment funds, pension funds, SICAVs…).

Cryptocurrencies have become a trend. Everybody talks about Bitcoin and its rising value. Now is the moment to think about it and get to know where we are and which the situation is.