Virtually the entire portfolio of BBVA products in Spain will be available on the mobile by the end of 2017. BBVA has made substantial progress in its digitization process in recent years: The bank's mobile banking app has gone from offering 16% of the products just three years ago, to 82% today, and will reach 92% next December.

BBVA’s ‘BBVA Bconomy’ is a new function included in the BBVA app and website that allows customers to know the state of their financial health and provides made-to-measure plans to improve it. The tool measures the evolution of income and expenses, the level of savings and spending on housing and debt levels to arrive at an average rating of the customer’s financial health. A reading of over 50% indicates an acceptable level of financial health, although measures on the savings front might be required to improve it. Besides diagnosing the state of their financial health, ‘BBVA Bconomy’ also assists customers with personalized recommendations and tools according to their situation. BBVA is the first bank in Spain to offer such financial analysis to its customers.

BBVA has smashed through the one million digital sales per month barrier for the first time, with online sales now growing steadily at more than 5% each month.

Mobile banking has come a long way since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and in the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, its utility in crisis situations has undoubtedly been proven.

At BBVA Compass, the bank’s award winning mobile app was initially used during Hurricane Harvey as one of the channels providing customers with branch availability information. But, with roads flooded, and ability to access branches limited, customers turned to the app to make transactions, like mobile deposits. Some even began running up against their mobile deposit limits.

Chris Skinner closed Latin America's top 'fintech' meeting with a prognosis: The financial services of the future will be open source and real-time or will not be at all.

UK Challenger bank Atom is making its first move overseas by beginning to offer savers in Germany access to its products.

The app-based bank, which is part owned by BBVA, has partnered with Deposit Solutions in order to launch fixed-rate products to customers in the country.

One of the topics of debate in the European Union’s Payment Services Directive 2, better known as PSD2, is how to articulate the access to customer data by third parties. The European Banking Authority (EBA) has said it is in favor of access through Application Program Interfaces (APIs), which it regards as being more secure in protecting customer data. That position differs from the one taken to date by the European Commission.

The United Kingdom is not the only country that has taken firm steps in its commitment to promote and regulate the fintech sector. An increasing number of regions are joining the trend to create regulatory sandboxes, in order to accelerate innovation in their business sectors and turn themselves into international hubs.

Cell phones are now competing with cards and cash as a payment method. The practice of paying by cell phone has become so widespread that in a large Spanish city, it’s now possible to get around, eat and shop without bringing your wallet.

According to the participants of cl@b 2017, taking place in Miami, fintech must act as a catalyst for banking institutions in the region to accelerate their transformation process and become 100% digital.