The bank and First Direct offer their 15 million customers biometric banking software for accessing their accounts online and by phone using their fingerprint or voice.

Over the last few years, Europe has lived through a perfect storm. Recession has strained its economic and political institutions to the limit. The situation was enough to keep anyone from being able to sleep: banking crisis, sovereign debt crisis, risk that the euro would disintegrate and risk of deflation. However, Europe has survived this perfect storm "thanks to the role played by the European Central Bank during the crisis and the institutional encouragement of European authorities toward building a genuine banking union," says José Manuel González-Páramo in an article in "Cuardenos de Información Económica" by Funcas under the title The ECB and banking union: working toward a more integrated and resilient Europe.

Today the European Banking Authority (EBA) released the final methodology and macroeconomic scenario for upcoming stress tests of the 53 main European banks, including BBVA.

“The shadow banking system” is a term that is becoming increasingly common in the media and talk shows on finance and economics. It gets its name from the expression “shadow banking”, which is used to refer to entities that are not banks engaging in bank-like activities.

The opening in 2013 of the new BBVA Innovation Center in Bogotáand the activity that the Colombian innovative ecosystem in these three years has been one of the main reasons why it was chosen as a winner by the public in its category (financial services).

US mathematician Robert Wilson, honored with BBVA Foundation’s Frontiers of Knowledge Award for “his pioneering contributions to the analysis of strategic interactions when economic agents have limited and imperfect information about their environment.”

In the past three years the Nobel prize has been awarded to three economists who had previously received the Frontiers of Knowledge Award: Angus Deaton, Jean Tirole and Lars Peter Hansen. In just eight editions, these awards bestowed by the BBVA Foundation have been able to identify the contributions and distinguish the researchers who, months or years later, would achieve the most prestigious award in the world.

In 2015, the global economy has possibly grown at its slowest rate since 2009. Economists expect global GDP to increase at a moderate rate, around 3%. Moreover, this year the progress made by emerging markets will not be enough to offset the adjustment in developed countries. How can regulation contribute to reverse this trend?