Communications

BBVA has taken a firm step toward the future by expanding its Data University program, which now features new courses on generative artificial intelligence (generative AI). As part of the agreement signed with OpenAI, the bank is calling on its employees, from data scientists to any other member of the team, to apply the latest advances in AI, machine learning and advanced analytics in developing innovative financial products. BBVA’s Data University has already impacted more than 50,000 employees in 6 years, of whom nearly 5,000 have completed specialized courses. BBVA is also looking to strengthen its educational ecosystem through partnerships with prestigious institutions such as the University of Navarra, Telefónica and Coursera.

Clean technologies, also known as 'cleantech', are technologies that contribute to sustainability and care for the environment. This includes emissions reduction, biodiversity protection and water treatment.

The Iberian Peninsula is on the cutting edge of Europe’s cleantech revolution. It is believed that the industry will create some 2.65 million new jobs and mobilize €150 billion in investment across the region by 2030. These impressive figures are revealed in a new report headed up by BBVA and Cleantech for Iberia, a coalition set up to drive the potential of Spain and Portugal as a clean energy hub in the European Union.

Online courses promoted by universities, business school training and even materials offered by technology giants are some of the ways to learn to master artificial intelligence. Beyond programming, AI professionals can receive training in other areas, such as computational linguistics and ethics. Thanks to this trend, Europe currently has over 120,000 professionals who are highly qualified to work in AI.

The British publication also recognized BBVA as the best bank in Mexico—one of the Group's main markets— the best bank in Colombia, and the best bank for corporate clients in Spain.

Six young students from Colombia and Peru, the children of vulnerable entrepreneurs served by the BBVA Microfinance Foundation, met with the Queen of Spain after winning the college scholarships granted by the foundation and BBVA in Colombia. These scholarships cover tuition and academic costs for the young students until they finish their studies. It is an opportunity for them to have a better future for themselves and their families.

BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila stated that in the fight against climate change, "Mexico is at an advantage as it is one of the countries with the most potential  in the world in wind and solar power." He also emphasized the Group's commitment to the country's energy transition.  “We must do more to support emerging markets. They have the most natural resources and are therefore a key part of the solution," he proclaimed at the opening of the 2nd BBVA Mexico Sustainability Summit held in Mexico City.

BBVA and Malta Inc. (“Malta”), a pioneering company in electro-thermal long-duration energy storage solutions, whose corporate goals align with the advancement of decarbonization using innovative cleantech, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). This agreement lays the groundwork for a strategic partnership aimed at developing innovative financial solutions to support the deployment in the Iberian Peninsula of Malta’s first-of-a-kind (FOAK) energy storage project. It´s a pioneering cleantech collaboration announced at Breakthrough Energy Summit in London

The President of the BBVA Foundation, Carlos Torres Vila, championed the power of knowledge during the ceremony for the 16th BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards. Knowledge is the key to solving the problems we are experiencing as a society, at a moment when humanity is going through an unprecedented wave of disruption and faces the challenges of climate change, he said.

“BBVA is a great ally for Spanish companies as they take on their sustainable transition and international expansion,” remarked Javier Rodríguez Soler, Global Head of Sustainability and CIB at BBVA. His presentation was part of the 41st Seminar organized by Spanish financial press association APIE and titled ‘The role of businesses in the new economy’, being held in Santander. “At BBVA, we support and accompany our clients, and not only multinational firms, but also those companies that need more specific advice to help them continue to grow,” he said.

The EIB Group (European Investment Bank and European Investment Fund) has invested €377 million in the ¨BBVA Consumer 2024-1¨ securitisation fund. This investment will enable BBVA to channel nearly €800 million into the real economy to finance energy efficiency projects and new mortgages for highly energy-efficient homes. The operation also includes financing for projects to boost the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and mid-caps in Spain.

BBVA has completed the sale of a portfolio of unsecured non-performing loans valued at approximately €270 million. This transaction is expected to positively impact the bank's non-performing loan (NPL) ratio in Spain, which was 4.11 percent at the close of the first quarter of 2024.

The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez; the President of Türkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; and Carlos Torres Vila, Chair of BBVA and Co-Chairman of the Spanish-Turkish Business Council, opened the Spain -Türkiye Business Meeting, which was held on Thursday at Ciudad BBVA in Madrid.

The BBVA CEO indicated this Wednesday that creating value is the bank’s main priority and guides the way in which BBVA manages its business. At an investors conference organized by Goldman Sachs in Madrid, Onur Genç said that BBVA’s commitment to optimal capital allocation is what distinguishes the bank from its peers in the markets where it operates.

BBVA tapped the market today with a euro-denominated contingent convertible (known as a CoCo or AT1) bond, attracting demand of €3.5 billion. The issue price was set at 6.875 percent, well below the 7.375 percent starting price.

The emergence of tools like ChatGPT has transformed conversational interactions between humans and machines. Generative AI's ability to provide accurate and contextually relevant responses makes it particularly valuable for automated customer service environments, such as chatbots and virtual avatars.

BBVA has received the 'Alcance 3.0' award for the 'Best Comprehensive Scope 3 Emissions Reduction Strategy'. This award, presented by the CPOnet Group, recognizes the efforts of organizations that help reduce emissions in their value chain: suppliers, customers, employees, partners, shareholders and society.

BBVA is expanding its intermediate emission reduction targets for 2030 to two new sectors: the real estate sector in Spain and the global aluminum industry. They join the list of targets for eight emission-intensive sectors previously set by the bank (oil & gas; power generation; automobile; steel; cement; coal; aviation and shipping).

BBVA's decarbonization targets: What do they mean and what is their scope?

BBVA tapped the market this Wednesday with a €1.75 billion senior preferred debt issue, structured in two tranches. Demand was double the final placement, with orders reaching €3.5 billion. The first tranche, with a three-year maturity (June 2027), closed at a rate of three-month Euribor +45 basis points (versus an initial price of three-month Euribor +70 to 75 basis points). The second tranche, with a six-year maturity (June 2030), closed at the mid-swap rate + 75 basis points, versus an initial price of mid-swap + 100 basis points.

Social media is shaping the financial behaviors of what is known as Generation Z, those born between the mid-1990s and the 2010s. New trends are becoming popular to the rhythm of TikTok. The latest philosophy adapts to the current financial uncertainty, and brings new terms we need to learn to know what young people are talking about when they talk about money.

After years at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI)-based research and projects, BBVA has taken another big step forward in the use of generative AI in its main markets. Not only has it prioritized around 100 projects to be developed with various tools that employ this new technology, it has also signed a strategic agreement with OpenAI —the creator of ChatGPT— to start deploying this cutting-edge tool among its employees. The aim is to explore, in a safe and responsible way, how generative AI can expedite processes, improve productivity and foster innovation thanks to its abilities to create text and images and process information, among other features.

“In recent years, we have been increasing our business in key sectors while reducing their emissions,” said the Global Head of Sustainability and CIB at BBVA, Javier Rodríguez Soler. “We set decarbonization targets for eight key sectors and are reducing the absolute and relative emissions of these sectors. And we are doing so while increasing our financing business with these clients,” he stated at the Institute of International Finance (IIF) European Summit in Paris.

Digital channels have become the main way banks interact with their customers, both to check information and to carry out any kind of transaction. In this context, biometrics are gaining ground as they are a safe way to verify that customers are who they say they are. “At BBVA, there are over 40 use cases on a group level in which customer identity must be identified by biometrics, one of the most secure ways to prevent fraud,” said Natalia Ortega, Global Head of Financial Crime Prevention at BBVA.

BBVA’s Board of Directors is presenting an offer to Banco Sabadell shareholders so they can benefit from an exceptionally favorable proposal. The deal offers one BBVA share for every 4.83 of Sabadell, representing a 30 percent premium over the closing price of both banks on April 29th, and a 50 percent premium over the weighted average prices of the past three months. The transaction has very positive financial impacts thanks to relevant synergies and the complementarity and excellence of both banks. The operation will create one of the best banks in Europe, with a loan market share close to 22 percent in Spain. Furthermore, BBVA will maintain its current shareholders distribution policy and its commitment to distribute any excess capital above 12 percent.

Payments infrastructure company EBA CLEARING successfully completed the first pan-European proof of concept for the R2P (Request To Pay) service. This digital messaging service is designed to streamline collection processes and can help boost instant transfers and electronic billing in the region. BBVA and seven other multinational payment service providers took part in the trial. They proved capable of exchanging payment requests in milliseconds.

BBVA mobilized €20 billion in sustainable business in the first quarter of 2024, up 41 percent on the same period last year. The bank is now ahead of the curve in achieving its goal of mobilizing €300 billion between 2018 and 2025, having already reached €226 billion. Of this figure, 77 percent will go toward combating climate change and 23 percent to promoting inclusive growth.

BBVA is a founding member of the Quantum Safe Financial Forum (QSFF), a safe space for collaboration between European and US financial firms promoted by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3). The alliance aims to foster the creation of new technological systems within the financial industry that are safe, secure and resilient to malicious attacks that rely on quantum computing.

The international publication has granted two ‘Innovators Awards’ to BBVA for its crypto asset service in Switzerland and for an automated process the bank has developed to guide the creation and application of machine learning models for the early detection and management of debt.

Once again, BBVA has been busy promoting sustainability training among 418 of its suppliers and SME customers across 13 countries in which it operates. A total of 552 people will soon be taking part in the UN Global Compact Sustainable Suppliers Training Programme, of whom 59% (326) are women.

Last Friday, the Chair of BBVA formally opened the new Miami office of BBVA Global Wealth Advisors (GWA), BBVA’s U.S. registered investment advisory unit. Carlos Torres Vila met with the team at this new office, comprised of over 30 professionals.

“Decarbonization is a technological revolution that requires innovation and financing. Its scope is global and it will affect all industries and sectors,” said Antonio Bravo, Global Head of Sustainability Strategy and CIB at BBVA. In the framework of the Energy Tech Summit, which ended yesterday in Bilbao, Bravo emphasized “the key role” of financing new clean technologies. “BBVA is committed to financing cleantech to facilitate its growth on an industrial scale,” he stressed.

Exoticca, a leading company in the digitization of big-ticket travel, has announced the signing of a €4 million finance agreement with BBVA Spark. This loan agreement will facilitate the company's expansion in Latin America. The financing is supported by the European Union and the European Investment Fund under the InvestEU Fund program.

BBVA is sponsoring the Energy Tech Summit, Europe's largest conference on innovation and investment in climate technologies and cleantech. More than 1,000 attendees from 40 countries including startups, investors, companies and government representatives will participate on April 10 and 11 in this event to be held at the Euskalduna Palace in Bilbao. The forum aims to connect and amplify the impact of new cleantech technologies in the fight against climate change.

BBVA shareholders will receive a gross cash dividend of 39 euro cents per share this Wednesday, 26 percent more than in April of last year. This dividend comes on top of the 16 cents per share paid in October as an interim dividend charged to 2023 earnings and the €781 million share buyback initiated on March 4, 2024.

BBVA contributed a record €7,668 million in own taxes in 2023 across all the countries in which it operates.  A further €5,950 million was also collected from third parties, making a grand total of €13,618 million in taxes, the highest tax contribution ever recorded by the bank. In Spain alone, BBVA paid a total of €1,191 million in its own taxes. With third-party taxes included, the bank contributed €3,384 million to the public treasury. This effort reflects BBVA's commitment to the social and economic well-being of the countries within its footprint and its strong support for local economies.

BBVA has received the new Single Resolution Board’s MREL regulatory requirement, which establishes the buffer the bank must maintain to absorb losses. Starting today, the bank’s own funds and eligible liabilities must represent 22.79 percent of the total of risk weighted assets of its European resolution group (which includes the holding, BBVA S. A. and its subsidiaries in Europe). BBVA already meets this requirement.

BBVA received the Gallup Award for one of the world’s top workplaces. This marks the third time the financial institution has received this global recognition.

BBVA Global Wealth Advisors, Inc. (BBVA GWA), the U.S. subsidiary and registered investment advisor (RIA) of Madrid-based BBVA, has selected BNY Mellon's Pershing as its clearing and custody provider. BBVA GWA’s advisory clients will access broker-dealer services from Pershing Advisor Solutions (PAS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of BNY Mellon. PAS is an SEC-registered broker-dealer, member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (FINRA), and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC).

In 2023, 96 percent of power consumption at BBVA Group facilities came from renewable sources, well above the 70 percent target set for 2025. In Spain, Portugal, Colombia, Uruguay, Mexico, Peru and Türkiye, 100 percent of the bank’s power usage comes from clean energy sources.

BBVA ‘Aprendemos juntos 2030’ is debuting the second season of ‘Desafios’ (Challenges), the program in which Generation Z talks about its challenges. In the seven years since it was launched, the global project has surpassed three billion views and has over eight million followers.

The BBVA Foundation and Salt, a non-profit cultural institution founded by Garanti BBVA, are joining forces to launch a grant program for Turkish artists, which includes a two-week residency in Spain and the opportunity to show the work produced in Türkiye and Spain.

For the fourth consecutive year, on the occasion of its Annual General Meeting (AGM), the bank will donate €300,000 to social non-profits active in four areas related to the environment and inclusive growth. Asociación Talismán, Fundación Emet, Asociación Puente de Esperanza Madrid and Fundación Madre Coraje were the chosen candidates 2024.

In the past two years, BBVA added 7,187 professionals in the data and technology field to its workforce - a figure it plans to increase in 2024 with 2,700 new hires. Of this amount, 1,225 will take place in Spain for the bank’s headquarters in Madrid, Bilbao and Barcelona. Technology talent has become a key aspect of the Group’s digital strategy.

BBVA shareholders largely backed the items on the agenda, which were subject to vote at the Annual General Meeting held on Friday. The bank’s corporate management received 98.2 percent of the votes. The AGM’s quorum stood at 71 percent, the highest in the bank’s history.

BBVA tapped the market Friday with a €1 billion seven-year green senior preferred bond, maturing in March 2031. Demand exceeded more than three times the initial offer, reaching €3.3 billion. The final price was set at mid-swap plus 90 basis points, significantly below the initial pricing (mid-swap plus 120 bp). Bookrunners were BBVA, Commerzbank, HSBC, Natixis and UBS.

The BBVA Group has established a new entity, BBVA Global Wealth Advisors, Inc., in Miami, Florida (USA), with the aim of serving high net-worth Latin American clients. BBVA Global Wealth Advisors joins the international wealth management service that BBVA already offers in Switzerland and Spain.

Luisa Gómez Bravo has been CFO of the Group since September 2023. She recognizes that the first few months in her new role have been very intense. After all, the Finance unit is responsible for the Group’s financial planning and monitoring, for capital, for managing liquidity and structural balance sheet risks, for relations with the Group’s investors and shareholders, and many other functions. After a historic 2023 in financial terms, Gómez Bravo predicts that 2024 will be another great year for BBVA. This will be possible, she maintains, thanks to the Group’s structural strengths:  leading franchises in high growth markets and a strategic focus based on the opportunities provided by innovation, digitization and sustainability. And these focal points have been the main drivers of the bank’s growth. “BBVA’s ability to combine profitability and growth is unique in the European banking sector and it sets us apart from our competitors,” she stressed.

BBVA closed 2023 reporting good progress in decarbonizing its credit portfolio. Improvements in plan delivery reached 24 percent in key sectors —such as oil and gas— for which 2030 targets were set. As of December 2023, 80% of the finance portfolio in high-emission sectors relates to clients actively managing their transition, according to the latest TCFD report published by the bank.

The global financial services group Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (BBVA) signs a Strategic Whole Portfolio Agreement with Cisco. The agreement gives BBVA access to Cisco’s full software portfolio, world-class technology and Customer Experience (CX) services, supporting the bank’s digitization journey. Five-year agreement enables BBVA to integrate continuous innovation into daily operations, enhancing speed, agility, and offering the latest in digital financial services.

SALT, Garanti BBVA’s cultural organization, is presenting ‘Is this Our Last Chance?’, a series of documentaries on the effects of climate change. It will be running at the walk-in cinema in SALT’s Beyoğlu facilities and can also be watched online at saltonline.org between February 29 and March 24.

BBVA Technology, created by the bank in late 2023, makes the leap to Latin America. The new tech division will be headquartered in Mexico, under the brand name ‘BBVA Technology en América.’

This Tuesday, BBVA placed US$2 billion in a senior debt issue structured in two tranches: a five-year senior 'preferred' bond and an 11-year senior 'non-preferred' bond. 1,000 million dollars have been placed in each tranche, thanks to a very high demand, which has reached 6,500 million dollars, thus tripling the final amount placed. The closing price in both sections has been very competitive. The senior preferred bond has closed at T+125 basis points (compared to an initial price of T+150 basis points), while that of the 'non-preferred' senior has been fixed at T+190 basis points, below the T+215 basis points of departure.

New clean technologies, or 'cleantech,' will play a key role in the decarbonization of the economy. To make this possible, however, the private sector must make a firm commitment to the sustainable agenda, leading to decisive, long-term investment in firms that develop clean technologies. These were the points emphasized by speakers at the 3rd BBVA Sustainability Forum, which the bank held in the auditorium of Ciudad BBVA, Madrid, Spain, with a livestream feed. 'Opportunity' was a key word in almost every speech.

BBVA is to start on Monday, March 4th, a new share buyback program for €781 million, having received the necessary clearance from the European Central Bank. The buyback is part of shareholders’ regular distributions for 2023. In total, BBVA will distribute €4.01 billion (50 percent of the net attributable profit from last year) to its shareholders, including the dividend and this share buyback program.

Türkiye’s 17th Women Entrepreneur Awards, organized by Garanti BBVA alongside ‘The Ekonomist’ and the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Türkiye (KAGIDER) was recently held on February 27, 2024.

BBVA widens its sustainable business with a global finance unit that will focus on cleantech innovation, announced BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila at the 3rd BBVA Sustainability Forum, held Thursday at the bank's headquarters in Madrid. The specialized team, based in New York, London and Madrid, will offer lending and advisory services.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards in Economics, Finance and Management has gone to Partha Dasgupta (University of Cambridge) for his work on the interaction between economic life and the natural environment. This research gave rise to environmental economics and “provided a framework for green accounting which is now widely adopted for measuring sustainable development,” the award committee noted.

Garanti BBVA continues to make its clients' lives easier with its digital products and services. The bank’s commercial banking clients are now able to apply for credit limits for loans online - without having to set foot in a  branch thanks to Garanti BBVA's "Commercial Credit Limit Application".

The future of the banking industry is shaped by technology and Garanti BBVA is working hard to design the banking model of the future. Garanti BBVA Technology is the bank’s latest and most disruptive initiative yet so it can continue to lead digital banking in Türkiye.

BBVA’s Turkish unit has successfully issued a $500 million 10-year bond, with a coupon rate of 8.375 percent. The 10-year Tier 2 subordinated debt has a call option on the fifth year.

The financial institution had 34.7 percent women in leadership positions in 2023, with promotions of women surpassing those of men in all countries where the bank has a presence. BBVA has announced a new target for the next two years, aiming to reach 36.8 percent female managers.

The bank is sponsoring the fifth edition of the Energy Tech Summit, which will be held in Bilbao for the first time on April 10th and 11th, 2024.

Students from the ‘5 Pebbles’ program visited 21 Garanti BBVA branches across Türkiye to learn firsthand about the different transactions that take place at banks. Garanti BBVA is a founding member of the Teachers Academy Foundation (ÖRAV) and has been collaborating with them to run this program since 2016.

BBVA’s Turkish unit is launching another pioneering solution, the Bonus Platinum Biometric Card, allowing users to make payments in a secure manner by simply scanning their fingerprint.  The innovative new card will be available shortly.

The Turkish central bank recently granted Garanti BBVA an operating license for its new subsidiary, Garanti Payment and Electronic Money Service, Inc., effective February 15, 2024. The innovative new company will begin offering a selected group of customers a beta version of its digital payment solutions under the TAMİ brand in March.

Garanti BBVA CEO Recep Baştuğ has secured the top spot among finance executives and seventh place overall in the latest annual "Türkiye’s Sustainability Leaders" ranking, published by the Turkish franchise of leading business magazine Fast Company.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences has gone to Claire Voisin (National Centre for Scientific Research, CNRS, France) and Yakov Eliashberg (Stanford University, United States) for driving forward mathematical thought by bridging the space between two key areas of geometry with special relevance to quantum physics.

Japanese researcher Takeo Kanade has received the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Information and Communication Technologies category for developing the algorithms that underlie the current capabilities of computers and robots in comprehending and interpreting visual images and scenes. His work has enabled key technologies such as self-driving vehicles, robotic surgery and facial recognition systems, and has revolutionized the broadcasting of sports events.

BBVA has been recognized yet another year in the latest edition of S&P Global’s Sustainability Yearbook. BBVA is among the top 5 percent of the world’s most sustainable banks, according to this ranking published today. The yearbook distinguishes leading sustainability companies in 62 sectors.

BBVA’s Board of Directors is to propose the appointment of two new members, Cristina de Parias, (as external board member) and Enrique Casanueva (as independent). They both have extensive experience and expertise in banking, having held top positions in financial institutions in key markets for BBVA. Furthermore, the female representation at the Group's Board will now increase from six to seven women, of a total of 15 members (47 percent), while the number of independent members will remain a majority, at 67 percent.

The financial magazine International Financial Review (IFR) presented BBVA the award for the Best European Bond of 2023 for the contingent convertible (CoCo) bond issued in June of last year - the first of this kind following the collapse of Credit Suisse. The publication underscored that the step taken by BBVA was ‘crucial’ to recovering confidence in this debt market.

The CEO of BBVA Group has again claimed the top spot in the bi-annual ‘Global 50 Turkish Leaders’ list by Türkiye’s leading financial magazine Capital. The publication has taken the pulse of the business world and shared valuable insights since 1993.

COP28 has ended and following intense debates and difficult consensus, we have seen considerable progress in the development of sustainable cooling. Refrigeration is not only necessary for the life of numerous households - it is essential for sectors such as food, logistics, digital technology and tourism.

Cleantech for Iberia brings together cleantech companies, investors and policy makers to boost the potential of Spain and Portugal as a clean energy hub in the European Union.

The research undertaken by Mexican ecologists Gerardo Ceballos (National Autonomous University of Mexico) and Rodolfo Dirzo (Stanford University) in Latin America and Africa has shown that the current species extinction rates in many groups of organisms are much higher than throughout the preceding two million years, according to the committee of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation Biology.

On Wednesday of this week, BBVA placed €1.25 billion in a 12-year Tier 2 subordinated debt issue, with a call option at seven years. The market response has been excellent, with demand reaching nearly €6 billion, five times the amount ultimately allotted. The price was set at mid swap + 240 basis points, significantly below the starting price (mid swap + 275 basis points).

Garanti BBVA announced its 2023 earnings. The bank’s net income for the year stood at TL 86.91 billion, total assets reached TL 2.20 trillion and the loan portfolio of cash and non-cash loans was TL 1.61 trillion. Deposits remained the main source of funding, representing 73 percent of the bank’s total assets with TL 1.6 trillion. This represents an increase of 77 percent in 2023. Garanti BBVA’s capital adequacy ratio was 16.5 percent,* return on average equity (ROAE) was 44.5 percent and return on average assets (ROAA) was 4.9 percent.