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.

The telecommunications sector is also exploring ways of creating new services and improving its processes by using blockchain. Among its many applications for telecos, in this issue of #RevoluciónBlockchain, Eusebio Felguera and Christophe Steck highlight its use to integrate third party services, manage intellectual property rights or as a system for improving corporate audits.

Virtual reality, big data and blockchain technology are changing the norms of the real estate business, as startups seek their place in the housing market.

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 possibility of using blockchain technology to monitor the origin of a product or to record intangibles, such as hours worked, opens up a new field that could revolutionize the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility. In this new post on #RevoluciónBlockchain, Iñigo Molero invites you to imagine the uses for a new mechanism to guarantee and give authenticity to companies’ social commitments.

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.

It is possible that this is not the most fun ranking among all the possible rankings, but it is probably the ranking we should all know to be alert and not to lower our guard when we move in digital environments.

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.