BBVA Compass Atascosita Branch Retail Executive Liz Zweifel recently said of the bank’s efforts around mobile engagement, “It’s important to make sure our customers understand we aren’t pushing them away, we just want them to have access to another resource and another connection.”

Garanti continues to bring innovative solutions to the Turkish banking sector with SWIFT GPI, a new standard that provides significant improvements to the handling of international payments. Foreign currency transactions made to both domestic and foreign banks via Garanti Bank can now be easily tracked with SWIFT’s ‘Tracking Report’ feature, which has been integrated into Garanti Online Banking.

Garanti Bank’s Motorcycle Loans were named the best new product at the 2019 Business Awards. This award from such a prestigious international organization represents further recognition of Garanti’s efforts to make its customers’ lives easier through innovative products and services.

Thirty years ago this month the internet came online giving consumers the ability to educate themselves on various products and services long before they ever spoke to an expert. For financial services, it signaled a shift in how bankers worked with customers.

At BBVA Compass, mobile banking has a front-of-the-line position when it comes to digital engagement, thanks to a journey that began in the bank’s retail branches five years ago.

Not long ago, banks that offered mobile apps were few and those that did essentially offered a convenient way for customers to check their account balance. Today, choosing a bank with no mobile app would be a non-starter for most customers.

Garanti Bank recently published its 2018 Integrated Annual Report with an important new feature. The report includes a “True Stories” theme this year: real stories about the experiences Garanti employees have had with customers across Turkey, in their own words. Garanti is the first and only bank in Turkey to publish an integrated annual report that includes information on the value the bank creates for customers.

For the second time within a month, GOBankingRates has recognized BBVA Compass, this time highlighting its second chance checking account as one of the top in the U.S. The list includes 16 banks across the country, with BBVA Compass being the second largest bank recognized in terms of assets and branch count.

Global consultancy Deloitte recently released a series of articles from their global digital banking consumer survey. In their third article, Recognizing the value of bank branches in a digital world, they found that bank branches continue to have value, even as digital becomes increasingly prevalent in all our day-to-day interactions.

Houston Dynamo season is officially here for soccer (Sorry – football) aficionados, and with it comes updates to one of the city’s East End neighborhood staples: BBVA Compass Stadium. Fans clad in their orange and white will have plenty of chances to check out the new facilities, and those with BBVA Compass blue in their pocket will have some updated perks.

Susana Valencia led the charge long before she earned the position of head banker in BBVA Compass’ Laredo market.

Lacey Perry is the Branch Retail Executive for the BBVA Compass Shoreline Branch in Corpus Christi, Texas. Owing to its downtown business center location, of the three branches in the city, the Shoreline branch is the one with the least consumer foot traffic. Yet Perry is still the highest performer across all 644 branches in the bank’s retail network.

Euromoney recognized Garanti for its groundbreaking personal banking products and services, selecting the bank for its ‘Best Private Banking’ award.  The leading  financial magazine plans to present the award next week in London.

Last year was a big year – the best year, in fact – for BBVA Compass Retail Banking.  

The retail bank unit, with a 644-branch network, not only realized its best year ever in customer growth, nearly doubling growth from the prior year, it also ramped up productivity and achieved record profits. And if that weren’t enough, the team tripled its in-branch mobile demos, reached the top level of retail network and mortgage origination Net Promoter Score (NPS) and improved workflow both inside and outside the branch.

BBVA Compass was recently named one of the 10 Best National Banks of 2019 by financial site GOBankingRates, a list compiled by extensive research around rates, fees and policies of the top banks in the nation.

BBVA Compass launched BBVA Compass Financial Tools as part of its mobile app functionality in August 2018 and recently released numbers prove just how valuable customers found the addition.

Garanti blazes a trail in the Turkish credit card market with the launch of Shop&Fly, a new product in the bank’s portfolio that makes life easier for its customers.

We recently caught up with serial entrepreneur Joaquín Ayuso de Paul, CEO and founder of Denizen – a fintech company incubated in BBVA’s New Digital Businesses unit. Denizen has created the first truly global bank account for expats.

Garanti Bank is expanding its unique range of innovative products and services with the rollout of Garanti Stories, a new feature embedded in the Garanti Cep app. Garanti Stories offers services that go beyond traditional banking while fulfilling customers’ basic needs and expectations, delivering an experience similar to the stories on popular social media platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram.

BBVA Compass has increased its Net Promoter Score (NPS) among Commercial clients across its footprint, according to a recent Voice of the Customer study by market intelligence provider Greenwich Associates.

BBVA is developing an open innovation program in the region, known as fast track, which makes it possible to streamline and make more efficient the processes that the Group develops together with startups to implement new digital products and services for the benefit of customers.

Usually when BBVA Compass posts Fintech Friday, there’s a theme or a trend that the news cycle follows.

The holidays can be stressful for those who have a large number of names on their gift list. Not much time remains for those in the full swing of their shopping spree. As the pressure mounts to finish, any little bit helps.

No one can predict the future. But calculated forecasts can be made based off of robust information.

BBVA only Spanish bank amongst 15 global finance leaders to join pre-validation pilot focused on error detection in gpi payments.

There’s a lot to process in this week’s edition of Fintech Friday. Especially when forces are joined and a caveat is issued.

Atom bank, the UK’s first bank built for mobile and the country’s fastest growing mortgage lender, has agreed a multi-year partnership with leading fintech Thought Machine to put its next generation of personal and business banking products onto Thought Machine’s Vault platform.

BBVA’s online digital acquisition for corporate customers is not only simple and convenient, but also presents an attractive design. This service was recognized at the 2018 Ibero-American Design Biennial with an award in the ‘Service Design’; category. The design team set out to emulate a real-life exchange with the customer through a digital interface, mimicking the tone and approach that an agent would typically use when tending to a potential customer.

This Fintech Friday has a local spin to it, with a columnist out in the desert making a case for Arizona’s financial technology sector.

Paying bills may be on the top of many people’s monthly to-do lists, but the number that count it among their favorite activities in a given month likely isn’t high. So, why not make it a little easier?

Garanti Bank customers now have two more products at their disposal, ‘Motorcycle Loans’ and ‘OSS Insurance’ (one stop shop). These new solutions give customers quick and easy access to credit and insurance options at the point of sale, with minimal paperwork. The bank’s goal is to make life easier for its customers through innovative products and services.

Mortgages and real estate were at the forefront of the fintech news headlines this week in the U.S.

The mobile banking app is the fastest-growing communication channel between banks and their customers today. For customers who use their banking app, it has become their preferred and most frequent channel of engagement. Still, most of the functionalities for banking apps are targeted towards servicing with limited new product sales capabilities. So, why don’t banks unleash the full potential of that digital channel?

The BBVA Compass Mobile Banking App is stacked with features and functionalities to make using the bank in your pocket easier, safer and more convenient than ever. But, using the app can be easier when paired with the language in which you’re most comfortable.

News headlines were heavy-hitting this week in the world of U.S. fintechs. The same outlet published two articles this week, one about possible challenges, and one about an ongoing alliance.

To make customers’ lives easier through innovative products and services, Garanti Bankası has revamped its mobile app (Garanti Cep) and website for SMBs. They now provide a completely new user experience tailored to the financial status and needs of each SMB user.

Many times changing the PIN on your debit card means making a trip to a bank branch, ATM or calling customer service. With BBVA Compass Mobile Banking, it’s as easy as logging into your mobile app.

Net Promoter Score, or NPS, is a metric that helps companies understand customer satisfaction and gauge customer brand loyalty. As metrics go, it’s a relatively simply one that calculates customer responses to the question, “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?”.

Gone are the days where verifying your identity meant photocopying your ID or showing your face in person alongside your driver’s license. Identity verification is easier thanks to camera-enabled smartphones.

Continuing to notch wins for its mobile banking app, BBVA Compass Mobile Banking was recently recognized as one of the top five banks in mobile deposit user experience in the 2018 Mobile Deposit Benchmark Report. The report, conducted by fintech and digital commerce research firm Futurion, was sponsored by Mitek, a global leader in mobile capture and digital identity verification solutions.

BBVA Compass last week announced that it had been named a leader in Customer Service and Ease of Use by Javelin Strategy & Research in their 2018 Mobile Banking Scorecard.

The BBVA Compass Mobile Banking App was named a leader in both the ease of use and the customer service categories in Javelin Strategy & Research’s 2018 Mobile Banking Scorecard, marking the fifth consecutive year the app has been recognized as a leader in mobile banking by the independent research firm.

Cash or card? The numbers opting for the latter continue to grow, especially among young people – the millennial generation – and in large cities like Madrid and Barcelona. Additionally, with ever-present POS’s and more and more retailers who accept them, card payments are increasingly frequent, even for low value transactions. These are some of the conclusions reached by BBVA Data & Analytics and reported by BBVA Research in a study about spending habits in Spain: The use of cash is on the decline and digital payments are increasingly popular.

A fintech firm has some big aspirations, and not just in the money it wants to raise, but the company it aspires to be.

The paradigm shift that will shape the future of banking was the subject of a keynote address by BBVA’s Derek White in Madrid this week. “BBVA is taking on Big Tech and building the future of banking”, he said.

BBVA secures the top spot among global mobile banking apps. In a report published recently, ‘The Forrester Banking Wave™: Global Mobile Apps Summary, 2018’, Forrester Research, an independent research firm, singles out BBVA as leading the pack among nine global mobile banking leaders. This recognition comes a few months after the analyst firm gave BBVA the highest score for its app  in The Forrester Banking Wave™: European Mobile Apps, Q2 2018In 2017, BBVA also earned the top spot in Forrester’s  ‘Global Mobile Banking Benchmark, 2017.’

Customer journeys in banking are a bit like a romance, from the initial meeting when you’re trying to figure out if the bank and its products and channels are right for you, to the building of the relationship where of you learn more about each other, and finally to the engagement and marriage of what will hopefully be a happy, productive and successful long-term relationship.