BBVA is one of the first banks in Visa's global network to use VTAP, a new Visa platform that enables financial institutions to create and manage digital tokens backed by fiat currencies such as the euro and the dollar. BBVA will use VTAP to create tokens on the public Ethereum blockchain with expected live pilots in 2025.
Blockchain
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 Digital Assets, the first initiative of Garanti BBVA Financial Technologies Inc., is now offering crypto wallet service on its mobile platform. This marks the first time in Turkey that a bank subsidiary has developed and implemented a crypto currencies wallet with its own resources. Garanti BBVA Digital Assets now allows customers to transfer and store bitcoin (BTC), Etherum (ETH) and USD coin (USDC) assets on its mobile platform, Garanti BBVA Crypto.
In 2022, more than $3.8 billion worth of cryptocurrencies were stolen. Traditional banks are therefore regaining ground to become service providers as custodians of crypto assets. This was the position advocated during the event hosted by El Confidencial by Alfonso Gómez, CEO of BBVA Switzerland. For more than two years now, BBVA Switzerland has enabled its customers to manage bitcoin, ether, and the rest of their investments from the online banking app.