Switzerland is the global center of private banking and a country many investors go to in search of diversification. But private banking is much more than that. It involves constant striving to understand the complexity of the financial markets in order to offer customers the best advice possible.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has launched its European banking transparency exercise for 2018. This is the fifth time the European supervisor has carried out this probe of the banks in the euro area. It will reveal its findings of 130 banks covering 900,000 data points in December.

The Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) has been scrutinizing EU banks’ business and profitability models since 2016. Among the findings of the review, published in a report, the supervisor shines the spotlight on the factors that undermine bank profitability, as well as the levers that can help boost it, including digitization. However, the report argues that offering digital products is not enough. Banks need to prepare their platforms to migrate from the analogue to the digital world.

After the hike in interest rates by the Central Bank of Turkey on September 13 (625 basis points from 17.75 percent to 24 percent), the Turkish government today (Thursday) unveiled a new economic program for the next three years (2019-2021). BBVA Research in a report released Thursday believes that both monetary policy and fiscal policy are now better geared toward correcting inflation and the imbalances of the Turkish economy.

BBVA has issued a €1 billion contingent convertible bond, or CoCo, (Additional Tier 1 or AT1) with a coupon of 5.875 percent, equaling its lowest-ever rate for this type of issue. High demand has allowed it to reduce the coupon by 50 basis points, from the initial 6.375 percent. This is a perpetual instrument (without a specific maturity date) over which the issuer reserves a call option in the fifth year.

The expiration of ECB Vice-President Vítor Constancio's term in June and the subsequent appointment of Luis de Guindos as his successor marked the beginning of the European Central Bank’s senior management renewal. But, how are ECB executive board members appointed?

The European Central Bank unveiled today the new €100 and €200 notes, which will be introduced in May 28, 2019. These notes complete the Europe series, the second since the introduction of the euro. The new notes, featuring security components that make them harder to counterfeit, are the highest-value denominations after the phase out of the €500 note.

Francisco González, the executive chairman of the BBVA Group, is a member of the International Advisory Panel of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and is a frequent visitor to the country. This weekend, he took part in the Singapore Summit, an event aimed at “connecting Asia with the rest of the world.” While there, Francisco González granted an interview to the Spanish daily ABC, in which he speaks about the “extraordinary moment” the bank is going through, having chosen to embark on a digital endeavor, the results of which have been striking. These results include an increase in digital sales, which accounted for 42 percent of total sales in July. “The first fruits of digitization have been really superb,” he says.

BBVA continues making headway in its strategy to cut down its real estate exposure. BBVA has reached an agreement to sell its 25.24 percent stake in Testa to Blackstone for a total of €478 million.

As widely expected, the ECB concluded its monetary policy meeting yesterday without making any changes to its monetary policy stance. As BBVA Research’s ECB Watch report notes, there were other key takeaways that came out of the meeting, such as the end of the Asset Purchase Programming, and the confirmation that the bank is in no rush to hike interest rates. From an economic standpoint, the institution affirmed its inflation outlook but slightly lowered its growth expectations for the euro zone.