Koray Öztopçu, Head of Consumer Finance at Garanti BBVA, recently penned an Op-Ed piece on artificial intelligence (AI), new generations and consumer finance. In his article, he claims that Generations Y and Z account for a growing slice of the consumer pie, thus requiring brands to pursue creative strategies on various fronts, from the relationship they build with consumers to the values they embrace. They must also keep up with new technologies if they hope to offer creative digital financing options. Notably, a technological tidal wave is triggering transformation in many sectors and processes, from production all the way through to consumption.

Next year will witness the entry into force of the European regulation on the provision of cryptoasset services, aka the MiCA Regulation, and with it a whole new generation of players is expected to break into the world of digital assets, as indeed prophesied at the 7th Blockchain Forum organized by El Confidencial. “Now more than ever, banks have an essential role to play in consolidating the cryptoasset ecosystem,” remarked Alfonso Gómez, CEO of BBVA Switzerland, who took part in the forum, where he proclaimed that BBVA was the first big bank to launch a bitcoin custody and trading service in Europe.

BBVA announces its participation in Project Agorá. This project, launched by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), a group of leading central banks, and the Institute of International Finance (IIF), will proceed to the next phase with more than forty private sector financial firms in their exploration of how tokenization can enhance wholesale cross-border payments.

Garanti BBVA, Türkiye’s leading digital bank, is all set to stage ‘Istanbul Venture Day’ to support the startup ecosystem and help ramp up innovative fintech solutions. The event will be held at the Salt Galata center on October 24 and is being organized alongside IE University in Spain, with the close support of the Spanish and Italian consulates. It is essentially the Istanbul leg of the ‘Venture Day’ series being held by IE University ahead of the wider Global South Summit.

The bank is expanding its cryptocurrency custody and trading services to include USD Coin (USDC), a leading stablecoin whose value is pegged to the US dollar. This addition will enable BBVA’s institutional clients to speed up their trading operations by enabling them to transfer value more efficiently with blockchain and secure their stablecoins into BBVA’s vault.

The Global Startup Awards (GSA), one of the most prestigious events for independent startups, will be held in Türkiye for the first time on September 24-25. With Garanti BBVA as the lead sponsor, GSA aims to recognize innovative startups in the Turkish entrepreneurship ecosystem, while bringing together a large community of entrepreneurs, investors, VCs, thought leaders, industry benchmarks, ecosystem partners, and other key stakeholders.