Of the tax revenue paid by Europeans, only one euro per taxpayer is used to finance the EU's budget. In total, the EU manages a budget of about 1% of the gross national income of its member states. Nonetheless, how this money is invested directly impacts Europeans’ lives; it is therefore of interest to understand the EU budget as of 2021, the first spending plan after the UK's exit from the EU.

BBVA opened its headquarters in Madrid to welcome investors, business leaders, public and private institutions and the media, to an event aimed at promoting sustainable development and the fight against climate change. During the first edition of the ‘BBVA Sustainable Finance Forum,’ Group Executive Chairman Francisco González explained the reason for the meeting: “Banks need to help customers drive sustainable development and transition towards a low-carbon economy. At BBVA, we want to be the catalysts of this change.” Francisco González opened the event alongside Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, Vice-President of the Government of Spain.

BBVA Compass in April announced a new addition to its Employee Assistance Plan (EAP) benefit, Rethink, an award-winning program that provides support to parents raising children with learning and behavioral challenges, or developmental disabilities.

The ‘BBVA Latin America Conference’, held on May 2 and 3 in New York, is a yearly event hosted by BBVA that brings together public and private Latin American debt issuers and North American investors. In this year’s edition of the conference —the eighth— BBVA CEO Carlos Torres Vila, and BBVA Global head of Customer Solutions Derek White were some of the prominent figures who took the floor to share their insights into pivotal issues such as investments in Latin America, sustainable finance and banking innovation.

Imagine a Spanish SME asking for a loan in Germany; an Italian easily transferring money to Portugal or a French person taking on a mortgage in the Netherlands.   All of this forms part of the fledgling European capital markets and banking union. What remains to be done? BBVA is one of the few European banks to address these issues at the joint conference of the European Commission and the European Central bank held today in Frankfurt.

BBVA today tapped the markets, issuing the largest ever green bond (€1 billion) by a eurozone financial institution. The 7-year non-preferred senior green bond makes BBVA the first Spanish bank to issue such debt instrument. High demand -three times higher than the bond’s value– allowed it to lower the price to mid-swap plus 80 basis points.

The consultancy Accenture analyzes the inroads made by big tech in the financial sector and identifies five key steps banks need to take to create value in the face of advances made by fintech companies. BBVA’s focus on open banking and transformation in the digital era has been acknowledged by a number of institutions.

BBVA's results for the first three months of 2018 surpassed market estimates by a wide margin. Banking analysts reacted positively to the results of both the Group and its regional franchises, which outperformed consensus forecasts. On the whole, analyst reports focused on the bank’s revenue strength, cost containment efforts, and impairment losses below expected levels.

Born in Chantada (Lugo), Spain, in 1944.

Graduated in Economic and Business Sciences from Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

BBVA’s strategy to bolster digitization translates into more digital sales, which are the main driver of total sales thanks to their impact on customer satisfaction and efficiency. These were some of the key insights shared by BBVA CEO Carlos Torres Vila during the bank’s Q1-18 conference call: “Digitization helps us improve efficiency while driving profit growth,” he said.