BBVA New Gen, the investment product offered by the Group’s Swiss franchise, has completed its first year of existence. In a move to streamline the onboarding process, the bank now lets prospective customers sign up online just by uploading a ‘selfie’, after which their identity is verified in a matter of seconds. BBVA Switzerland is leveraging this technology, which can verify identity documents and passports from more than 190 countries, to boost its international expansion.

The southern Swiss city of Lugano has stepped up cryptocurrency use and is developing new infrastructure to adopt Bitcoin, Tether and its own LVGA token as legal tender. In the coming months, Lugano residents will be able to use cryptocurrencies to pay their taxes and make purchases at more than 200 local businesses.

World Finance, one of the world's leading business and finance magazines, named Garanti BBVA ‘Türkiye's Best Retail Bank’ for the eighth consecutive time. The Turkish franchise was also singled out as ‘Europe's Best Retail Bank’ for the fifth time.

BBVA is the winner in four categories of the 2022 Euromoney Awards for Excellence. The bank is 'Western Europe’s Best Digital Bank,’ 'Latin America’s Best Bank for Corporate Responsibility,’ 'Mexico’s Best Bank' and 'Mexico’s Best Investment Bank.'

Joy Macknight, editor of The Banker, spoke with Alfonso Gómez, the CEO of BBVA Switzerland, to discuss the details of the bank’s cryptocurrency trading and custody service. BBVA Switzerland is the first traditional bank in Europe, and one of the first in the world to offer a service of this kind.

BBVA has launched a new card in Spain as part of its Aqua range - characterized by offering a dynamic CVV for each purchase and no printed number - that combines maximum security with the possibility of paying in installments for up to three months, with no interest or deferral fees. As a result, BBVA is breaking into the new ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ (BNPL) payment method with a product that helps its customers to make their payments in a convenient and flexible way.

Victoria del Castillo Marchese has been the Head of Strategy and M&A at BBVA since December 2018. Prior to this, she held a variety of different roles at the bank, where she began working in 2001. She was recently interviewed by the media outlet Capital & Corporate, where she recalled that “one of BBVA’s priorities is profitable growth” in places where the bank has a presence, such as Spain, Mexico, Turkey and South America. She also emphasized the value of the digital means of expanding the bank’s activity in other countries: “Digitization allows us to enter new markets,” she said.

BBVA’s Turkish unit consolidates its lead in innovative digital payment solutions by adding a new dimension to card transactions with digital receipts, a first in the Turkish banking sector.

BBVA has set a huge digital challenge for itself: to go one step further in the banking services it provides and offer personalized suggestions that improve its customers’  financial health. To do so, it uses data science to identify the characteristics that define them (always with their prior consent) and therefore offer suggestions on how to manage their everyday finances, lower their debt, save or plan for the future.

Atom, the UK's first app-based bank, has raised more than £75m in new equity (around €90m)¹. Together with Toscafund and Infinity Investment Partners, BBVA has led this round, which is still open to other shareholders of the company. BBVA has once again shown its support for the Atom project and team, of which it has been a shareholder since 2015 and which it has supported in all its share capital increases. BBVA is currently the main shareholder, with a 39% holding.

BBVA has reached an agreement to invest $300 million (about €263 million¹) in Neon, a Brazilian digital bank founded in 2016 that aims to improve access to financial services for individuals, self-employed and small businesses in its country. Neon has 15 million registered accounts. The investment takes place in a context of unprecedented technological disruption, with solid growth of digital and innovative models, particularly in financial services. In addition to a clear commitment to innovation, this investment allows BBVA to gain exposure to retail banking in Brazil, a market with one of the highest potential in the world.

Adaptation to the environment is the main vector of operation and survival for a business. The technological environment plays a crucial role in this process. As a result, cybersecurity becomes a fundamental pillar and employees are key players. Not in vain, 62% of incidents of this nature that take place in organizations happen due to human error, as reflected in the latest ‘Cyberthreats and Trends’ report prepared by the National Cryptologic Center.

Digitization in the banking sector is increasingly taking on different dimensions. Virtual assistants and chatbots have come to life with the support of artificial intelligence technologies. BBVA’s Turkish unit was a pioneer in the country with the launching of Ugi in 2016 and Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger bots a few years later.

BBVA continues to emphasize its digital transformation as an essential factor in achieving its ambitious goals, presented at Investor Day. In this interview, Global Head of Client Solutions David Puente highlights how being a pioneer in digitization gives BBVA an advantage to continue growing in areas such as payments and insurance, create alliances through ‘open banking’ and, in particular, to take a new strategic leap: evolve from providing services to proactive recommendations to help customers improve their financial health and transition to a decarbonized economy.

The BBVA Group is debuting fully digital retail banking in Italy, with a unique value proposition and customer experience. BBVA is entering the Italian market with free digital banking; one of the most secure cards in the world - as there are no printed numbers on the card, and a dynamic CVV - unmatched in Italy; and financing products at competitive prices.

BBVA has been an overall digital experience leader for five years in a row according to ‘The Forrester Digital Experience Review™: European Mobile Banking Apps, Q3 2021’. The report identifies leaders in mobile banking functionality and user experience (UX) and shares best practices that digital and customer experience (CX) professionals can learn from. BBVA is the only Spanish bank that is an overall leader in the mobile digital banking experience.

In line with BBVA’s commitment to SMEs and aware of entrepreneurs’ new needs, BBVA in Peru has launched the profile ‘Mi Negocio’ (My Business) on its app so that individuals with a business can manage their personal finances as well as finances for their businesses on the same platform.

The need to streamline commercial supply chains and their inherent financial flows through digital processes has been a constant over the last 15 years. With the Covid-19 pandemic, that need has become even more relevant.

BBVA's Swiss subsidiary, which specializes in private banking, is launching New Gen, a new 100% digital investment account that can be accessed with an initial deposit of $10,000 or its equivalent in euros or Swiss francs.

Valora Coches, the BBVA Group tool for customers and non-customers that helps you decide whether to change your vehicle or not, continues to grow. From its late February 2020 launch in Spain until July 2021 it registered almost two million hits and more than 900,000 vehicle searches. In March 2021, the tool reached its highest figures with 100,000 hits and 50,000 car searches.

Global Finance magazine has announced the winners for the 2021 Best Digital Bank Awards. BBVA has become the only Spanish bank recognized by the publication in two categories: Best digital bank for SMEs, and best corporate mobile banking app in Western Europe.

The BBVA in Spain app is celebrating its 10th anniversary as a key element in the bank’s commitment to lead the digitalization of banking in the country. Since 2011, the app has adapted its functionalities to the times and needs of its customers, at first by allowing them to operate remotely with ease and total security, and over the years with the deployment of a wide range of personalized tools to help them make decisions about their personal finances.

Sending money from one side of the globe to the other is apparently very simple, but cross-border payments pose a real challenge. Making international transfers quickly and safely requires a complex structure in which relationships with other financial institutions are essential. The International Financial Institutions area at BBVA has a team of bankers that promotes the creation of a global network of banks that provides customers with the possibility of making international investments and transactions.

Embedded finance allows you to pay for a purchase online without entering bank details or instantly take out a consumer loan on digital platforms outside banks, among many other options. This Bank-as-a-Service model, which allows the integration of financial services via APIs, moved $22.5 billion in 2020, a figure that will increase tenfold in the next four years.

BBVA has launched a digital tool in Spain that provides SMEs and the self-employed with a simulator to find out if they are eligible for direct aid from the Spanish Government under Royal Decree Law (RDL) 5/2021. The assistance package is aimed at protecting the productive fabric in the sectors hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. By entering the details of their business activity, customers and non-customers can find out if they meet the requirements for accessing the aid, the amount they would receive and how to apply. Thanks to this solution, small businesses will be able to carry out a preliminary assessment and anticipate an application for aid.

Treasury plays an essential role in a company as it oversees cash management in both the short and long term. Accordingly, when companies expand into international markets, whether through organic or inorganic growth, at some point they have to decide whether to operate with decentralized treasuries, in each of the different countries, or whether to take advantage of the benefits offered by the centralization and digitization of regional centers.

BBVA recently brought together its wholesale clients with sustainability and digitization experts in a conference centered on the future of transaction banking. Companies such as Acciona, PepsiCo and Tigo Colombia had the opportunity to present their sustainable and digital development models, in which BBVA's transactional banking products have played a key role.

BBVA, together with the other 15 major Spanish banks, took part in the first tests leading to potential issuance of the digital euro. The initiative, coordinated by Iberpay, involved the Bank of Spain as an observer and its findings are included in the report.

BBVA has launched Travel Packs; a new fully digital service that allows customers to save on fees and commissions during their travels abroad. Customers will be able to select the plan that best suits them, choosing from basic, standard and premium, and enjoy the advantages that each one provides; all without having to take out a new card. This new service is available for more than seven million debit and credit cards issued by the entity to individuals.