BBVA’s Executive Board Member analyzed in Frankfurt the main challenges that Europe will face in the decade ahead and how they will affect banks. José Manuel González-Páramo noted that, on top of political and economic challenges, Europe will need to tackle “the double disruption that digital transformation and climate change will bring” and which will impact not only its economy, but also its financial institutions.

As BBVA last week unveiled a new set of strategic priorities to help strengthen its purpose, it also shared an update on its digital transformation.

Did you know? There are more than 1300 different roles within BBVA—and they all play a critical role in creating opportunities for our customers. Over the coming months, we’ll be profiling some team members and sharing how they’re Working for Our Customers.

Holvi, the BBVA-owned digital banking specialist for self-employed business owners, has announced it is expanding into its third core market – the United Kingdom.

Garanti BBVA is the only private Turkish bank participating in Turkey’s blockchain network, the BiGA Digital Asset Transform Platform, developed by Istanbul Clearing, Settlement and Custody Bank (Takasbank). For the first time, Garanti BBVA carried out blockchain transfers in real time with other participating banks.

For the third year in a row, Garanti BBVA won the awards for the “Best Mobile App” in Turkey and the “Best Consumer Digital Bank” in Turkey at the 2019 World Finance Digital Banking Awards. This recognition demonstrates once again that Garanti BBVA is a leader in the banking sector, with innovative digital banking products and services.

Garanti BBVA Mobile took home the award for the Best Mobile Banking App at the seventh Boğaziçi IT Awards, organized by Boğaziçi University IT Club (Compec).

As part of Garanti BBVA’s goal to enhance customer experience on the go, the bank is now offering customer service on a corporate WhatsApp account. The new WhatsApp service allows customers to resolve their problems quickly and get detailed information on the bank’s products and services  – all on a channel they already use on a daily basis.

Garanti BBVA customers carry out more than 88 percent of their non-cash transactions without ever setting foot in a branch — using either the mobile banking app, the website, or ATMs.

In this installment on how BBVA USA’s Head of Retail Banking Murat Çağri Süzer helped BBVA USA achieve notable branch productivity over the course of two years, we take a look at the importance of digitizing products for increased convenience and efficiency for both customers and branch employees.

Garanti BBVA Executive Vice President Didem Dinçer Başer joined the Women in Technology (Wtech) Association at their inaugural event, ‘Human Diversity in Technology.’ The Wtech Association aims to increase the number of women in technology by helping them fulfill their potential and advocating for equal opportunities. Didem Dinçer Başer participated in a panel entitled ‘Future with Technology’ where she discussed the future of digital banking and ever-changing customer expectations.

Garanti BBVA continues to raise the bar by delivering state-of-the art functionality that helps big businesses and SMEs alike with their business needs.

Forbes contributor Blake Morgan highlighted in a recent article that digital transformation and customer experience go hand in hand. She goes on to share 100 statistics that demonstrate the growth and importance of digital transformation and its impact on customer experience, as well as the digital challenges and opportunities that companies are likely to face in the future.

The BBVA’s Turkish unit has a long history with digital transformation and continues to break new ground. The evolving role of bank branches plays a big part in this transformation – a topic that was discussed in depth at the RBR Bank Transformation Conference in London.

The Garanti BBVA mobile application uses biometric authentication technology to provide customers a better user experience and increased security. The bank’s customers’ warm response — registering more than 800,000 activations using iris recognition per month— validates the bank’s investment in the technology.

The British magazine Private Banker International of Verdict publishing group named BBVA’s Swiss unit as the winner in the ‘Outstanding Customer Relationship Service and Engagement 2019’ category. The honor recognized BBVA’s international private banking model, its global investment offering, and the personalization of its services, all founded on a holistic approach to wealth management.

The Garanti BBVA BonusFlaş application, initially launched in 2015, provides a ‘one-stop-shop’ to help bank customers quickly, easily, and securely manage their credit cards.

BBVA’s Turkish unit earned top honors in the Enterprise Transformation and Security & Fraud categories at the Finance Technology Awards hosted by IDC Turkey as part of the IDC Finance Summit 2019.

BBVA has achieved a critical milestone in its drive towards digital banking after passing the 50 percent mobile banking tipping point for customers. The news means more than half of BBVA’s active customers worldwide now engage with the bank via mobile devices, and through mobile channels like its world-leading mobile banking app.

Oscar Vélez de Mendizábal (Victoria, 1972), is the head of BBVA Spain’s business transformation factory. He’s previously held different positions in the business, institution and corporate areas of the Southern Territorial Division.

Global Finance magazine has recognized BBVA as the Best Foreign Exchange (FX) Provider in Latin America for the third year in a row. The 2019 World’s Best Foreign Exchange Providers awards were presented on November 19 in London. The publication also presented BBVA awards for the best FX services in its franchises in Peru, Argentina and Spain.

What were the hottest digital transformation trends in banking in 2019? Which ones should we keep an eye on in 2020? The banking sector’s interest in the latest developments in cyber security, computing or gamification grows day by day. For disciplines such as ‘pentesting’, quantum computing or development with the Unity engine, the future looks bright.

With the advent of big data, banks like BBVA are better able to harness the power of information to improve customer experience and provide advice, products and services – all personalized to your unique situation.

Business Insider today named BBVA USA as a leader in its Business Insider Intelligence 2019 Mobile Banking Competitive Edge study, the third year the financial and business news company has conducted the proprietary research and the second year BBVA has been evaluated.

Prosper, a leading online marketplace lending platform connecting borrowers and investors, together with the U.S. subsidiary of Madrid-based BBVA, announced their collaboration in providing a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) available through Prosper’s website (www.prosper.com).

BBVA CEO Onur Genç cited the bank’s collaboration with startups as a contributing factor to the bank’s hitting its growth and efficiency targets. He made his comments at Open Summit, where he presented the grand prize for this year’s international Open Talent competition to the winning startup, Cobee. The BBVA CEO also referred to the Group’s challenges, saying, “Our goal is to monetize the technological advances we’ve made from our investment in digital transformation.”

BBVA’s Turkish bank recently participated in the Mobile Market Association’s Impact Istanbul event. Executive Vice President Didem Dinçer Başer represented the bank at the conference, where she discussed the transformational role of mobile technology and mobile marketing in the finance sector.

Garanti BBVA recently launched an electronic platform known as Elektronik Teminat Mektubu Platformu, or ETMP, to provide customers letters of guarantee electronically. Provided by Kredi Kayıt Bürosu (KKB), Garanti BBVA customers who are KKB Findeks members get free access to the platform.

BBVA has again been named as one of the world’s leading financial institutions when it comes to open banking. The accolade comes as part of the Open Banking Report 2019, published by online banking experts The Paypers and Innopay. The authors of the report also interviewed BBVA’s Global Head of Open Banking, Carlos López Moctezuma, drawing on his insights to explain best practice in the sector around the core themes.

When Simple appointed David Hijirida as CEO in November 2018, the Amazon alum was excited to get back to his banking roots, the industry where he’d first cut his teeth.

BBVA CEO Onur Genç said on Monday that the bank is focused on organic growth, efficiency and transactionality, all leveraged by digitization. “We are focused on these three levers to ensure we provide the best value,” he said at the 10th Expansión-KPMG Financial Meeting in Madrid. He also recalled that “we have been pioneering the digital transformation.”

Garanti BBVA keeps its finger on the pulse of new technology, sponsoring the Second National Blockchain Workshop, organized by TÜBİTAK Bilgem, Turkey’s Informatics and Information Security Research Center.

With technology and digitization increasingly powering the global economy, the emergence of quantum computing could prove to be a significant catalyst for innovation and growth.

BBVA, in partnership with South Summit, has launched a request for proposals to solve two major challenges of the financial sector: improving digital onboarding processes and digital banking services for SMEs.

In February 2019, BBVA USA’s parent company disclosed in its earnings presentation that BBVA USA’s branch productivity increased by 40 percent over two years, making the regional bank one of the fastest growing in its segment.

Since SWIFT gpi was launched in 2017, BBVA has managed three million transactions – equivalent to €2 trillion – using this international payment standard. BBVA staunchly supports this global payment mechanism, which delivers speed and transparency to cross-border payments. Now SWIFT gpi aims to offer instant payments.

BBVA Net Cash USA Mobile was named a winner in the 2019 Bank Customer Experience (BCX) Awards, taking first place in the Best Mobile/Online Experience (financial institutions) category. BBVA USA was recognized for the award at the Bank Customer Experience Summit in Chicago in September, along with honorees who received awards in three other categories.

Large technology companies, or bigtech, have a large customer base, access to a massive volume of data and financial strength. While banks also have some of these attributes, it is the network effect technologies that companies benefit from that could ultimately undermine data-fueled innovation that is causing regulators and businesses alike concern. According to Santiago Fernández de Lis, the Head of Regulation at BBVA, if we want to ensure the continued growth, innovation and sustainability of the digital economy, we need to shift our approach to regulation from a national, sectoral approach to a truly cross-border and intersectoral approach.

We recently caught up with Open Platform’s CEO, Abhishek Gupta, to discuss the benefits of open banking, Banking-as-a-Service, and why they have the power to transform the delivery of services across a wide range of industries in the US. Following are the highlights from our conversation with him.

BBVA has a global program designed to create personalized, data-driven experiences to cater for the individual saving needs of its customers, either through recommendations, advice or proactive steps. After launching this kind of solution in Spain and Mexico, BBVA is now working to bring this program to the other countries in which it operates.

When it comes to 21st century banking, there is no shortage of terms bandied about that those in the industry are expected to know. Among the more obtuse are those related to banking’s next frontier, open banking.

The digital onboarding process based on biometric identification technologies, which is already available in Spain, will now reach other countries thanks to the reuse of globally designed components.

Gonzalo Rodriguez Rodriguez is the global head of Customer Solutions at BBVA – the business unit charged with building the future of consumer financial services for the bank. In this interview, Gonzalo outlines where he sees the future of banking heading, and how far along that path BBVA currently is.

Atom bank, the U.K.’s first bank built exclusively for mobile, has today been awarded a £10 million grant to boost genuine competition in lending to SMEs. Atom will use the grant to help transform banking for small businesses and deliver an additional £3 billion of business financing by March 2024. Atom will also create 70 jobs in the North East of England.

Digital transformation in the banking industry cannot be overstated. From mobile capabilities to digital check deposits to P2P platforms such as Venmo and PayPal, the wave of digital is washing ashore on every financial institution’s line-of-business. This constant shift can provide customers numerous options when managing their finances.

BBVA announced strong results last week when it published its 2Q 2019 report – much of which was underpinned by continuous strong performance in its digital transformation.

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.