The U.S. based consulting firm, Gallup, has selected BBVA as one of the most exceptional companies to work for in the world. The Gallup award recognizes organizations that are committed to the corporate culture and talent development of their workforces.

During his presentation at the Wake Up, Spain!, event, BBVA Chair, Carlos Torres Vila, stated that the European banking sector, and more specifically Spanish banks, are facing the current situation of uncertainty from a position of unquestionable financial strength, profitability and a very solid capital and liquidity position. He added that BBVA is facing this moment with confidence, and from a strong position due to the very characteristics of its diversified, profitable business model and its cautious risk management.

BBVA is firmly committed to working towards building a greener and more inclusive society. To this end, for the third consecutive year and on the occasion of the Annual General Meeting (AGM), the bank will make a donation of 300,000 euros to social organizations working in four areas related to the environment and inclusive growth. Fundación Grandes Amigos en Acción, CESAL, Fundación Plan Internacional and Fundación Ecomar were the winning organisations in 2022.

BBVA is the only Spanish financial institution that is a member of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Finance Industry Advisory Board, which held its first meeting in Paris. This initiative aims to be an institutional channel between the agency, the finance community and energy policy makers in order to promote dialogue on the issues that affect energy investments, in particular those related to the transition toward clean energy.

Garanti BBVA presented its sponsored platform ‘Women of Commerce’ as an example of good practice at the 67th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women held at the UN Headquarters in New York from March 6 to 17, 2023.

On Monday, March 20th, BBVA will start to execute its €422 million share buyback program after receiving the authorization of the European Central Bank.

The BBVA Annual Shareholder meeting will be held in Bilbao next Friday, March 13. The shareholder meeting (also known as the Annual General Meeting or AGM) is one of a company’s primary corporate governance vehicles. During the meeting, the company’s owners (the shareholders) ratify decisions on topics determined by law and by the corporate bylaws. The AGM includes particular features that are established by corporate law. BBVA’s AGM will be held on March 17th in Bilbao.

In 2021, seven banks, with BBVA as the only Spanish bank, participated in the launch of Swift Go. There are currently over 600 banks in 120 countries that offer this solution for low-value payments, streamlining the collection of payment for services to cross-border clients for SMEs, and making it easier for individuals to buy online in other countries. 85 percent of the payments made on this service are completed in three minutes or less.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Humanities and Social Sciences has been presented to Steven Pinker (Harvard University) and Peter Singer (Princeton University) for bringing vital questions to the mainstream of public debate: the role of rationality, scientific knowledge, and humanistic values, and the moral status of animals. Their work has had a significant influence in shaping the cultural and legal framework of today.

BBVA has announced the roll-out of its BBVA Spark business unit in Colombia. The new unit will offer an end-to-end financial services proposition aimed at entrepreneurs and tech companies at different stages of development. This includes a full range of banking products and services, specialized support and access to the tech industry ecosystem.

BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila stated that “Mexico is going to be a clear winner in the current context” in which U.S. companies are moving production to closer regions. This trend, known as ‘nearshoring’, is going to accelerate due to the tax incentives the U.S. has designed to promote investment in the fight against climate change in the country (the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA). He stressed this at CERAWeek, the benchmark global event for the energy sector, which is being held in Houston throughout this week.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Economics, Finance and Management has gone in this fifteenth edition to Timothy J. Besley (London School of Economics), Torsten Persson (Institute of International Economic Studies, Stockholm University) and Guido Tabellini (Bocconi University,) for “illuminating the connections between the economic and political worlds” and “transforming the field of political economy,” in the words of the committee’s citation.

The American magazine Fortune, which compiles the World's Most Admired Companies ranking, once again places BBVA as the first and only Spanish bank on its list.

BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila participated in a round-table discussion on the present and future of sustainable finance, where he stressed the central role of banks as an intermediary, accompanying society in its journey to reduce carbon emissions. In his opinion, with its activity, “banks contribute to economic development and social well-being by tackling major challenges like digitization and sustainability.”

The benefits of blockchain technology and tokens, popularly associated with cryptocurrencies, go well beyond the fintech world. The traceability, security, speed and transparency of blockchain, in addition to its relatively lower cost, mean that this technology offers valuable benefits in many aspects of daily life, such as streamlining bureaucratic procedures, monitoring daily habits or giving people tighter control of their digital identity. The report ‘Tokenise Europe 2025,’ in which BBVA took part, discusses the benefits of 'tokenizing' the European economy.

Laser light tools developed by Anne L’Huillier, Paul Corkum, and Ferenc Krausz have led to a new field of research with applications in areas such as electronics, the diagnosis of illnesses, the development of new materials and the search for clean energy sources.

BBVA is to donate €31.89 million for the people affected by the earthquakes in Türkiye. BBVA has also launched a series of campaigns to collect contributions from employees and customers.

BBVA is giving a boost to its Pivot Commercial Cards platform by adding support for  Mastercard cards expense management. This platform allows greater control over the use of corporate cards by simplifying the review and authorisation processes for expenses. It already manages daily purchases for more than 85,000 employees of client companies using BBVA's corporate cards across eight countries.

BBVA will propose the election of Sonia Dulá to its Board of Directors. Dulá has a deep knowledge of the banking business and extensive experience in key markets for the bank, such as Mexico, South America and Spain. Her appointment will increase to 73 percent the number of independent directors, maintaining a 40 percent of women while reinforcing the international profile of the Board.

Matrix Renewables, the TPG Rise-backed global renewable energy platform, and BBVA have announced the closing of €40 million in sustainable financing to begin the construction of two solar plants, Zaratán and Arroyadas, in the municipality of Valladolid, in northwest Spain. The new plants will lead to the creation of 500 local jobs during the construction phase.

Alberto Sangiovanni Vincentelli, a Professor at the University of California in Berkeley, was presented the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Information and Communication Technologies for “radically transforming” the design of chips that power today’s electronic devices, leading to “the modern semiconductor industry.”

The global carbon credit trading platform Carbonplace has raised 45 million dollars in a seed funding round and has been incorporated as its own entity. BBVA, one of the nine founding banks, has participated in this round and has appointed its Head of Carbon Markets at BBVA Corporate & Investment Banking, Ingo Ramming, as a representative on Carbonplace's Board of Directors.

BBVA has been recognized yet another year in the latest 2023 edition of S&P Global’s Sustainability Yearbook. BBVA is one of the most sustainable banks in the world —the top five percent — according to this ranking, which was released today. The yearbook distinguishes the leading companies for sustainability in 61 different sectors.

In 2022, BBVA channeled €50 billion into sustainable business, up 41% from the €35.4 billion mobilized in 2021. The bank has now channeled a total of €136 billion since 2018, when it announced its sustainable business mobilization target through 2025. That target, set initially at €100 billion, was trebled in October 2022 to €300 billion, thanks to the reinforcement of the product offering in the wholesale and retail segments.

BBVA joins Banca March, Banco Santander, CaixaBank, Generali, Inetum, Línea Directa Aseguradora, MAPFRE, Repsol, Unicaja Banco and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, the entities that launched Dalion in 2020. The project works on an innovative digital identity management model based on blockchain, which allows each person full control of their data.

BBVA’s record profit for 2022 was warmly received by the market. Analysts have raised their valuations of the bank following the results release, given the strength of the figures and the bank’s guidance for 2023. During the February 1, 2023 trading day, the bank's share price climbed 4.7%.

The three award-winning scientists “have expanded knowledge of the evolutionary importance of behavior as a driver of animal survival, reproduction and adaptation,” and have demonstrated the need to incorporate social interactions into species conservation plans, according to the committee of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Ecology and Conservation Biology category.

BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila spoke of the vital role that banks play in the economy when presenting the 2022 results. “Banks act as catalysts of activity by granting credit to the real economy,” he said. “This may be banks’ greatest contribution to society,” he added. In this regard, he underlined that in 2022, the BBVA Group granted nearly €200 billion in new financing to businesses. At the press conference, BBVA CEO Onur Genç also shared the bank’s outlook for 2023.

Türkiye Garanti Bankası A.Ş., Garanti BBVA, announced its financial results for the year ending on December 31, 2022. The bank’s net income stood at TL 58.51 billion, while asset size was TL 1.3 trillion.

Jose Luis Elechiguerra, Global Head of Engineering at BBVA, faces 2023 with a focus on continuing to evolve the technology platform to provide new capabilities that allow us to offer the best solutions to customers. To do this, he maintains his commitment to disruptive technologies such as the cloud, artificial intelligence, big data or biometrics, without losing sight of the digital regulatory framework, as he mentioned in the CIO Spain interview.

The BBVA Foundation awarded the Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biomedicine in this fifteenth edition to David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper “for their contributions to the use of artificial intelligence for the accurate prediction of the three-dimensional structure of proteins.” In the words of the committee, the winners achieved an advance with huge biomedical potential for the development of new treatments against multiple conditions.

Sustainability and with it inclusive growth are at the center of Garanti BBVA's strategy. As part of its efforts, the bank continues to support the EU Green Deal harmonization process in Türkiye, hosting a themed program of events titled ‘Sustainable Future in Exports.’

Garanti BBVA customers are now able to use the Garanti BBVA mobile app and Internet Banking to access information from their accounts at other banks. The regulation of open banking has made this a possibility. Customers can view their account activity and balances without having to log into each bank separately, and can even transfer money between accounts.

Paleoclimatologists James Zachos (University of California at Santa Cruz, USA) and Ellen Thomas (Yale University and Wesleyan University, USA) identified an anomalous episode  in the planet’s history in which massive emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere occurred, causing a global temperature rise of between 5 and 6 ºC and a massive extinction of species in the deep ocean, which has provided “a very valuable analogy of anthropogenic climate change”, according to the jury of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Climate Change.

BBVA launched a 4.5-year covered bond today, which raised proceeds of €1.5 billion. The initial offered pricing (mid-swap rate plus 32 basis points) was lowered to the mid-swap rate plus 27 basis points thanks to strong demand of €3 billion. The issue will be listed on the Madrid market under Spanish law. This is the bank’s first issuance of this kind of debt since November 2016.

BBVA has reached an agreement with BAC Credomatic that will benefit clients of both banks, thanks to wider geographical coverage for their cash management operations. Companies using BBVA Pivot will be able to make payments and transfers with their subsidiaries, customers and suppliers in six new Central American countries from the same cash management solution, which will now integrate BAC accounts as if they were BBVA's. Just one year after its launch, Pivot already has 1,500 clients and expects to reach a transaction volume of 680 billion euros by the end of 2022.

The bank organized a variety of different volunteer programs in December in every country where it has a presence. Over 1,100 volunteers participated in 36 charitable activities, which primarily entailed collecting food and toys and supporting underprivileged groups.

The world's leading recruiter PageGroup. which operates globally as Michael Page, Page Personnel, Page Executive and Page Outsourcing, has signed an £80 million sustainability Club Deal facility led by BBVA. The new financing will support PageGroup in pursuing a twofold objective: to fight climate change and contribute to gender equality. BBVA has been mandated as sole sustainability coordinator in this transaction, in which HSBC also participated, with each entity providing £40 million in sustainable financing.

This Tuesday, BBVA launched an 8-year senior non-preferred debt issue, maturing in January 2031, with a redemption option in the seventh year. The exit rate is MS+190/195bps. This is the Group's first issue in 2023.

BBVA sees the challenge of diversity as one of the most important strategic pillars of its corporate culture and a wealth to be promoted. To this end, BBVA Switzerland is joining the Group's diversity and equality initiatives with a new project with WeBloom, a Swiss organization dedicated to diversity, inclusion and sustainability in science and technology.

Garanti BBVA was once again included in CDP’s global ‘A list’ for its climate change program thanks to the bank’s sustainability efforts, especially in climate change and inclusive growth. CDP’s climate change program is considered one of the world’s most important reporting platforms. Garanti BBVA has been reporting to the organization’s climate change program, and the public, since 2009, and to the CDP water program since 2015. The bank continues to be the main support of CDP in Türkiye.

For the eighth consecutive year, BBVA's Turkish unit is the only company from Türkiye to be included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI). The bank has made it into the DJSI Emerging Markets category every year since 2015, and this year repeated its success with a record score of 82 points, the sixth-highest among global financial institutions.

For the third consecutive year, BBVA obtained the highest score in the European banks category, and the second highest score globally in the latest Dow Jones Sustainability Index - the benchmark global reference for sustainability. The annual analysis was published on December 9th, and included a total of 25 banks this year.

On Thursday, BBVA CEO Onur Genç was recognized by the Spanish-Turkish Chamber of Commerce in the professional merit category for his career at the bank. At the awards ceremony, Genç reviewed BBVA's role as a link between markets as important as Latin America and Spain and a country with as much potential as Turkey.

At the 18th edition of the ‘IMI Conference Turkish Contact Center Awards’, Garanti BBVA was recently presented the award for the ‘Best Digital Solution’. The event was held as part of the Turkey Communication Center Days. All sectors using call center services participated in the competition.

The British publication, which is part of the Financial Times group, selected the BBVA Group as the Global Bank of the Year. The Banker also recognized BBVA as the Best Bank in Western Europe, Spain, Peru and Colombia. The magazine pointed to the Group’s strong financial fundamentals and innovation and sustainability strategies, which put it ahead of its peers.

The BBVA Board of Directors approved Wednesday the bank adhering to the measures included in the new  Code of Good Practice (CBP in Spanish) to help customers at risk of vulnerability with mortgages, as well as the expansion of the Code of Good Practice, which has been in force since 2012.

BBVA's CEO, Onur Genç, said Monday that he is very satisfied with the performance of the digital bank's business and customer acquisition in Italy, one year after its launch. “We expect to end the year with 160,000 customers, almost triple the initial forecasts,” he said during his presentation at the XIII Encuentro Financiero Expansión KPMG.

Garanti BBVA, the BBVA Group’s Turkish franchise,  integrates climate change and inclusive growth within its core strategies. In line with that commitment, Garanti BBVA has launched a program of events called 'Sustainable Future in Exports' to support Türkiye’s adaptation to the European Green Deal and pave the way to sustainable investment. At the first event, held on November 23, 2022 at Fişekhane Istanbul, the bank explained the European Green Deal and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to the sectors and institutions–especially SMEs–that will be affected by the new rules governing exports to the EU.

Garanti BBVA has renewed a $400 million syndicated loan in separate tranches of $155 million and €238.5 million maturing at 367 days. The syndicate of international lenders comprises 23 banks from 13 countries.

BBVA has explored the potential of blockchain technology as a major catalyst to create value in finance 2.0 for the past six years and is confident of its ability to build a more advanced society in economic and social terms. Alfonso Gómez, CEO of BBVA Switzerland,  spoke recently at the Fifth Blockchain and Digital Asset Forum hosted by online publication El Confidencial and sponsored by Grant Thornton, Allfunds, Criptan and Metrovacesa. Alfonso explained the key points of digital assets, discussed the role and responsibilities of traditional banks in this new space, and pointed out the opportunities that are now emerging.

You can watch the event delayed here.

The Global Head of Sustainability at BBVA, Javier Rodríguez Soler, said that we are seeing a growing interest in carbon markets, which "will play a critical role in the energy transition." In an online panel organized by the Institute of International Finance (IIF) in the framework of the COP27 held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Javier Rodríguez Soler acknowledged that "there is increasing pressure to buy quality carbon credits."

BBVA placed CHF 425 million of a senior preferred bond issue today. The labeled green bond is divided into two tranches with maturities of three and six years. The first tranche, maturing in 2025 and comprising CHF 215 million, bears interest at SARON mid-swap plus 108 basis points, while the second tranche, maturing in 2028 and comprising CHF 210 million, bears interest at SARON mid-swap plus 123 basis points.

As a result of its joining Net Zero Asset Managers in 2021, BBVA Asset Management has announced its initial targets for decarbonization of assets under management. This initial commitment affects equities and bonds in managed portfolios in Spain and Mexico. The scope of the commitment will be widened in coming years. BBVA AM has set intermediate commitments for the year 2030, which include a 50% reduction of carbon emissions of its equity and corporate fixed income assets.

BBVA channeled a total of €124 billion in sustainable business between 2018 and September 2022, of which €13 billion corresponds to the third quarter of 2022, a 60% increase over the same period in 2021.

BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila, alongside other leaders of major global companies, has signed a statement calling on world leaders and participants at the Sharm El Sheikh United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 27) to commit convincingly to a just transition. "This transition needs a radical rethinking of how we do business," explains the statement from the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders promoted by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Garanti BBVA has entered a strategic partnership with Erguvan, the country’s first and only digital carbon credit trading platform to accelerate compliance for its export clients and help them meet the target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030.

Türkiye Garanti Bankası A.Ş., reported its results for the first nine months of the year. The bank posted a net income of TL 38.73 billion from January - September 2022, with total assets reaching TL 1.22 trillion and lending amounting to TL 873.29 billion through cash and non-cash loans.

Institutional investment in digital assets continues to gain momentum, accelerating the adoption and regulation of the Blockchain ecosystem worldwide. Several days ago, Protein Capital, a Spanish fund manager in digital assets, reinforced its international expansion in partnership with BBVA Switzerland, with which it has reached an agreement for the custody of the Bitcoin and Ethereum protocols.

In an interview with Anadolu Agency, Garanti BBVA’s Head of Customer Solutions and Digital Banking Işıl Akdemir Evlioğlu analyzed the latest developments in digitization and mobile banking, as well as the bank’s investments in this field, following 15 years of mobile banking.

The BBVA Turkish unit will offer the first online training session for the Women Entrepreneurs Academy of Türkiye, in collaboration with Boğaziçi University Lifelong Education Center (BÜYEM).

The Group’s Turkish franchise adds a different dimension to its work on sustainability and inclusive growth, two areas at the center of its strategy.

BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila today announced that the bank will increase its sustainable finance target by 50 percent. “Sustainability is a business opportunity,” because the amount of investment required is huge ($275 trillion through 2025), he said at the Institute for International Finance (IIF) annual meeting in Washington, DC.  In this sense, he added that the bank has been channeling sustainable financing “at a really fast pace”, which prompted the bank to surpasse in June 2022 the initial goal set for 2025. For that reason, “today I can announce that we’re now upping the ante again to €300 billion for the period 2018-2025,” he said.

BBVA invests 10 million euros in the world's largest clean hydrogen infrastructure fund financing the whole hydrogen value chain scale up. This is a strategic investment for BBVA, as hydrogen is shaping up to be a possible solution to decarbonize the most emission-intensive sectors of the economy.

Learning to deal with conflicts, to train emotions and to speak in public are three very important aspects for the emotional wellbeing of children. A group of parents, with the support of the teaching and management team of the Nuestra Señora de La Paloma public school in Madrid, has launched a project to help children manage their feelings, frustrations and fears.

It’s easy to be fascinated by a self-appointed ‘expert’ on social media who says you should give everything up to live off passive income or invest your savings in the flavor-of-the-month cryptocurrency. Especially if they do so while leaning on the hood of a Lamborghini or sipping a cocktail on the rooftop bar of a luxury hotel in Dubai. The danger of influencers is that they can end up ruining your finances. At BBVA's EduFin Summit 2022, Manuel Ángel Méndez, editor-in-chief of Teknautas, gave some tips on how to tell the difference between legitimate financial influencers and con artists.

BBVA placed €1.25 billion in a green bond issue of senior preferred debt today, with a seven year maturity. The issue price was set at mid-swap plus 155 basis points, below the initial target price (mid-swap plus 175-180 basis points). This is the Group’s first bond issue with a “green” seal for senior preferred debt and the largest with this label for a Spanish financial issuer.

BBVA Research has revised upward its estimate of Spanish GDP growth for 2022 to 4.4 percent (from the 4.1 percent forecast three months ago), although its outlook has deteriorated for 2023, when growth is expected to reach just 1 percent (from the previous 1.8 percent). This is according to the latest 'Situación España' report, presented today by Jorge Sicilia, Director of BBVA Research and BBVA's Chief Economist; Rafael Doménech, Head of Economic Analysis; and Miguel Cardoso, Chief Economist for Spain.

BBVA is committed to clean energy and will support the energy industry in its transition. The bank has therefore announced it will reduce emissions from its oil and gas portfolio by 30% by 2030. This commitment is in addition to the bank's 2021 targets  in four other carbon-intensive sectors and the decision to stop financing coal companies, in line with the zero net emissions banking alliance (NZBA).

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

Sometimes, with hard work and excitement, dreams do come true. Kelly Zapata, a young design student, is proof of this. Born in Dabeiba,  a small town in the Antioquia region of Colombia, Kelly has become a role model for her community and a source of pride for everyone who knows her. Not only has she managed to change her life, but with her mother’s help, she is creating opportunities for others.