The bank has expanded its partnership with the tech giant from 3,300 to 11,000 ChatGPT Enterprise licences, as part of its plan to extend generative AI capabilities across the entire organisation. Employees report that automating routine tasks with this tool allows them to save an average of nearly three hours of work per week, which they can then dedicate to strategic tasks. More than 80% of licensed users use it daily. BBVA offers training, has created a community to share best practices, and encourages internal innovation through idea ‘hackathons’.

The first edition of BBVA’s FinAI Summit brought together international experts in artificial intelligence to address how its transformative potential should advance in parallel with its ethical, safe and responsible use. The financial sector must carry out its transformation without losing customers’ trust. Doing so requires a gradual, regulated approach that maintains human interaction, just like BBVA is already doing. Over 6,000 people attended the event in person and online.

You can watch the full event at finaisummit.com

The digital revolution is transforming every economic sector—and financeis no exception. Cryptoassets, tokenization, and blockchain-basedtechnologies are accelerating an inevitable evolution. In this context,traditional banks face a historic opportunity: to lead this transformation bycombining their experience, credibility, and global reach with the agility andinnovation of the crypto ecosystem. The future isn’t about choosingbetween the old and the new—it’s about merging both worlds into aseamless experience.

From May 5 to 8, BBVA will organize the first FinAI Summit, featuring talks, panel discussions and master classes, in an event designed to be the key forum on how AI could reshape financial services and products, and how this could impact society at large. Speakers will include international experts such as Kay Firth-Butterfield, previously head of artificial intelligence at the World Economic Forum. The public can attend online by registering on the FinAI Summit website.

You can register for the event at this link

BBVA's Turkish unit recently updated the design of its digital banking app, Garanti BBVA Mobile, to offer its customers a more personalized, user-friendly experience and a range of new smart features.

BBVA's Turkish unit updates the smart assistant on its mobile app, Ugi, using cutting-edge generative artificial intelligence (AI) based on large language models. Ugi now offers the bank’s customers a more natural experience with dynamic, and hyperpersonalized solutions.

The international publication presented two awards to ADA, BBVA’s global data platform, a pioneer in the financial sector, and to a process that applies behavioral economic techniques to telephone debt negotiation using an empathetic approach with the customer. In addition, its AI Factor was once again recognized as one of the best financial innovation laboratories in the world.

BBVA has provided £15m in venture debt to Plum, a British personal finance app. The deal will help Plum expand and scale, and reflects BBVA’s growing commitment to the UK as Europe's leading hub for entrepreneurship and venture capital.

Guardrails are mechanisms to guide the responsible development of AI so that it does not become a technological, social, or security threat. Classical and generative AI require different types of guardrails, as the latter’s ability to engage directly with end users has introduced a whole new set of challenges for developers—such as the mass production of fake news or the creation of new methods for perpetrating cybercrime.

Murat Kalkan, Head of Digital Banks at BBVA, participated in the 36th edition The European House – Ambrosetti, held in Cernobbio, to discuss the rise of digital banks. During his address, he shared his views on the competition between incumbents and neobanks, and highlighted how BBVA Italy is disrupting the banking industry in the country by combining the best of digital banking with the strengths of traditional institutions. The result: one of the fastest growing banks in Italy with more than 680,000customers and the top-rated bank by customers in the country according to the Bain & Company NPS Benchmark Report, all achieved in just three years.

BBVA has adopted a data and AI governance strategy that lets it widen the use of artificial intelligence safely and responsibly.  The bank follows industry best practices and international regulations, keeps an inventory of its AI systems, and monitors them regularly to assess their accuracy, spot errors and ensure they remain current.

BBVA has received the green light from the Spanish Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV) to provide custody and execution services for cryptoassets trading orders in Spain. After completing this formality, the bank is preparing to launch its offering for its retail customers, which will initially be available with bitcoin and ether.

The Bot Talent internal competition has demonstrated the creativity of BBVA employees to come up with innovative and secure uses of generative AI for their daily work. The bank will study the viability of three winning projects from Peru, Mexico and Spain, which propose using ChatGPT Enterprise to enhance customer service for sales agents, streamline the process of granting loans to SMEs, and detect official communications, supposedly from BBVA, that are actually hiding fraudulent messages to steal users’ financial data.

The use of ChatGPT Enterprise is already saving BBVA employees an average of two hours of work per week. In tandem, the bank has been busy preparing new agents, built on artificial intelligence (AI), to help its managers provide better service to business customers. These were some of the examples cited by Álvaro Martín, head of Data for Business Clients and Sustainability at BBVA, at the Mobile World Congress, in showing that AI will entail a new transformation process spanning the entire Group. Meanwhile, Ignacio de Loyola Gil, head of the Digital Banking Business in Europe, explained BBVA’s strategy to reach new European markets thanks to the scalability of the digital platform developed in Spain.

The winners of the 18th Türkiye’s Women Entrepreneurs Competition, organized by Garanti BBVA alongside Ekonomist magazine and the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Türkiye (KAGİDER), have just been announced at an award ceremony held on February 27.

Photo cover: Garanti BBVA CEO Mahmut Akten and Özlem Kahramaner, Türkiye's female entrepreneur of the year.

BBVA Spark signed a €30 million financing agreement with MytripleA, the alternative financing platform with working capital solutions for businesses. The agreement aims to boost the platform’s growth and allow it to continue developing new products for customers and investors.

Header photo: From left to right: Jorge Antón and Sergio Antón, co-founders at MytripleA, and Miguel Ángel Alcalá, head of BBVA Spark Spain.

BBVA has updated its personal virtual assistant Blue, integrated in its app, making it more personalized. Blue now has enhanced abilities to interact with customers using natural language, provide tailored information on their finances, and perform some of the most common account and card transactions. In parallel, BBVA created a co-pilot to facilitate the daily work of branch employees. With these initiatives, BBVA is moving forward with its strategy to put artificial intelligence (AI) at the disposal of its customers, and mark the beginning of a new stage in digital banking management. The roll-out of the new assistant Blue, with the AI Factory team participating in the technical aspects, will take place on February 20th in Spain and gradually reach all of the bank’s customers.