BBVA's digital sales in South America now account for 32% of total sales in the region, after rising almost 16% over the past year. This growth is based on a highly diversified portfolio: 50% of insurance policies, 48% of investment funds, 40% of long-term deposits and 35% of consumer loans in the region are nowcontracted digitally.

It’s official: WhatsApp will allow users to delete their already sent messages. This is a feature that users were begging for. However, the app only gives users seven minutes to delete a message. After that, there will be no way to delete messages for everyone from a chat. Therefore, these 420 seconds acquire a very special dimension in the use of the most popular instant messaging app.

Esri, a global leader in Geographic Information Systems and BBVA API Market, have rolled out a collaboration project to embed BBVA's 'API PayStats' in Esri’s platform. The aim is to enable companies and public institutions to make business decisions based on customers’ actual commercial behavior.

What sort of a future awaits the banking sector? This morning, BBVA Executive Director José Manuel González-Páramo gave a 360-degree view of that future, during a speech at the opening of the academic year at the Fundación Sant Elmo in Seville. Banks, he said, face two possible scenarios: one in which they remain static, and which will cause them to disappear; or a transformative scenario, which implies a complete reinvention of the sector.

We’ve all been there before. You’re in a rush and you have somewhere to be with very little time to get from Point A to Point B. But you also have a check to deposit and you’ve been holding off on doing it for the longest time.

The BBVA Group was once again recognized for its digital transformation. The European Financial Management & Marketing Association (EFMA) presented BBVA the 2017 award for Global Innovator in Banking in recognition of its efforts to innovate and offer customers unique experiences. The awards ceremony took place this afternoon as a precursor to the 45th annual EFMA Congress, which starts tomorrow in Rome.

Facebook continues to take steps to reach the widest possible public and as it does so, minimize the competition. As part of its constant tug-of-war with Snapchat, Facebook has acquired an app that is very popular among adolescents: the polling startup “tbh,” which allows users to send messages anonymously, in response to survey questions about their friends. The acronym tbh” means “to be honest.”

According to recently released BBVA Research data, people around the globe could send their loved ones up to $606 billion in remittances in 2017, which made us wonder. What are the elements that impact remittances when they are sent?

According to the Global Head of Tuyyo Ignacio de Loyola Gil Puértolas, remittance senders should be aware of two main elements: exchange rates and transaction fees. Exchange rates are the amount of foreign currency received for each dollar sent. Fees are the amount the sender pays to the service provider for transferring the funds.

It´s been a year filled with intense activity: more than 800 startups from 72 countries competed for the first prize in the ninth edition of the BBVA Open Talent competition. The winner was Change, an Israeli artificial intelligence startup that received its prize  - and the accompanying 50,000 euros - at the BBVA Open Summit last week in Madrid.

WhatsApp continues to add new functions in its effort to become a “total” application. The Facebook-owned company is currently developing a new feature that will allow users to make group voice and video calls. The project is currently in a development phase and is expected to see the light in 2018.