Chicfy, a women’s second-hand clothing digital marketplace, is one of the most unlikely success stories of the sharing economy in Spain. Behind the startup’s rise to fame is the one of a kind personality of an entrepreneur, Nono Ruiz, who thinks differently about business.

According to Business Insider, the number of connected devices will triple over the next three years. However, the Internet of Things still has to overcome many obstacles before it becomes an essential part of our daily lives. Standards, more consolidated platforms or the mass adoption of personal voice assistants are some of the tasks in which more progress needs to be achieved in the next five years.

Little by Little, big data is making a place for itself in day-to-day life in its use in processes that have become almost essential. One example of this is the success of the BBVA Valora tool that allows anyone to know the best price at which to buy or rent a house. Since it was launched in September, the tool has received over 500,000 hits, half of which by non-BBVA customers, which shows its widespread acceptance.

The banking sector has undergone significant changes in recent years and BBVA Bancomer has placed a special emphasis on including groundbreaking work methodologies, capable of strengthening communication with customers, at the core of the transformation. The goal is to create opportunities that allow the Bank to be there, whenever and wherever the customer needs it, through digital solutions that revolutionize their experience.

This is the question that José Manuel González-Páramo posed in a recent discussion at the Bank of Finland, where he analyzed the digital transformation underway and the challenges it brings for the banking sector. In his opinion, we are in the middle of a banking revolution that will transform financial institutions as we know them today. According to BBVA’s Executive Director, their survival as institutions will depend on their ability to adapt to the new environment.

Thousands are drawn to virtual reality and global tech giants are starting to get on board.

Geoffrey Hinton, who just received the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Information and Communications Technologies, teaches machines to think like people. His work at University of Toronto and then Google, has been instrumental in the development of a number of applications, including automatic translation system, personal assistants like Siri, driverless systems or medical diagnosis.

Ethics has always been a key debate topic within the financial system. And it still is in the current era of digital disruption that has engulfed a sector that is pivotal for the economy. But, can the banking industry stay up to date with the new frantic pace of innovation and still operate following a series of ethical principles?

In José Manuel González-Páramo’s opinion, in the context of change unleashed by new technologies, the financial sector needs to keep ethics at the core of its banking activity. According to BBVA’s executive director, in the new digital era, banks need start considering confidence as a top priority, and data privacy and cybersecurity as the two pillars on which this confidence is built.

Blockchain is paving the way for new ways of business for independent journalists. This is just the beginning of a revolution based on many of the principles of the sharing economy.

BBVA is the only financial institution attending the G20 conference being held this Wednesday in Wiesbaden (Germany).  Executive Director José Manuel González-Páramo participated in a conference on the opportunities and risks associated with the digital transformation, together with the President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, Jens Weidmann; German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble; Governor of the Central Bank of Mexico, Agustín Carstens; and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney.