Leaning against the trunk of an apple tree in 1666, Isaac Newton asked himself, “Why do apples fall?” Perhaps some of the neighboring farmers would have thought: “Well, that’s a waste of time.” And maybe they would have added, “What’s the use of thinking about such obvious occurrences? Apples fall because they fall.” Behind this possible recrimination there might have been some noteworthy ideas about the importance of productivity and the food chain: what is important about apples is how to harvest them and capitalize on them.

Peio Belausteguigoitia (Bilbao, 1973) is BBVA Spain’s Head of Business Development. He was previously responsible for Spain’s northern territory, and prior to that ran the eastern territory and was regional director for the northeast.

The unit that he runs is key to the bank’s transformation in Spain. In the year and a half that he has held this position, BBVA has ramped up the number of digital deliveries for private customers – providing them tools to help make better financial decisions – and boosted sales and the number of online customers.

And now, BBVA has created the digital transformation factory for businesses. With a multidisciplinary team of 250 professionals, it facilitates the delivery of digital solutions to customers in more flexible timeframes. The bank recently launched Avalbox, which radically digitizes the guarantor request process; and One View, which helps businesses make more efficient decisions and optimize their cashflow.

Thanksgiving.

Black Friday.

Digital Monday.

These are all words associated with this time of the year. That, and, “It’s too early for holiday music!”

Buenos Aires is currently welcoming the annual summit of the B20, or Business 20, as part of the Argentinian presidency of the G20 in 2018. Over 1,500 representatives of the business community have gathered in the Argentine capital to put forward their recommendations to the world’s main leaders.

According to Gartner, 38% of companies around the world are expected to use ‘conversational bots’ for customer service and managing corporate applications by employees.

The startup glossary has acquired a new term to set those “unicorns” that have exceeded a valuation of $10 billion apart from the rest.

BBVA Compass has long been an advocate for small business, winning multiple awards and teaming with organizations that cultivate a thriving entrepreneurial atmosphere. The bank’s BBVA Momentum program even focuses on entrepreneurs who strive to elevate their communities through social projects.

There is no one-size-fits all when categorizing small businesses, according to BBVA Compass Business Banking Segment Executive Director Elizabeth Dobers. Some banks have a different outlook when making that determination – including consideration of annual sales, number of employees and annual receipts.

More than just an acronym, the Small Business Administration has been around since 1953, serving small businesses around the country in more ways than one. BBVA Compass has consistently used the phrase, “cornerstones of thriving communities” when describing small businesses, and the SBA is a big help in molding those cornerstones.

Business owners have a responsibility to ensure quality services to their clients in order for their operations to thrive. For a majority of business owners, their business is what makes up most of their income and subsequently their net worth.

Aquademy, a swimming school in Laredo, Texas, specializes in teaching people of all ages to swim – whether they’re babies, toddlers, children, teens or adults – where they learn the basics with the option of also learning four styles of swimming. Additionally, Aquademy holds aqua aerobics classes for adults.

Some have been lucky enough to receive a share of their thriving family businesses; others have amassed fortunes on their own merits before they turned 30, fortunes worth more than $1.3 billion.

Small businesses and startups face obstacles when building operations. For owners, the challenges can be great and the return on investment can be minimal in the beginning.

The European Commission’s annual report on innovative companies sees startups posting a 36 percent growth in financing in 2017, with fintechs leading the way.

The digital revolution has transformed the business of many industries and the way in which they offer services to their customers. Carlos Casas and Ophélie Richard, or BBVA’s Talent & Culture area, addressed during Talent Day 2018 how these changes also require companies to radically transform the way in which they work and manage in-house talent.

It’s a challenging enough road for small businesses to navigate in order to cultivate success in a competitive atmosphere. Tangling that web even further is the strong momentum of the digital wave.

Iberdrola, Repsol and BlackRock representatives debated today about the need to integrate climate change into their strategies, speaking at the ‘BBVA Sustainable Finance Forum’ event, held today at BBVA’s headquarters in Madrid. The main takeaways were two: An actual commitment to sustainability is an opportunity, not a threat; and, more and more, investors demand companies to include sustainable criteria in their strategies.

Every year, National Small Business Week brings out initiatives and recognition for small businesses, showcasing the entrepreneurial spirit from coast-to-coast.

Openpay, which is part of the BBVA Group, has forged a new partnership with Alipay, the leading digital payment platform in China. The deal means Chinese tourists and visitors to Mexico can now pay for things using the Alipay platform, which is hugely popular in their home country.

BBVA Open Talent, the world’s biggest fintech competition, will this year mark its tenth anniversary by working with more start-ups than ever before.

Find out more and register for Open Talent 2018 here.

Fair-trade coffee, quality guarantee, ecological tomatoes… consumers read the labels on the things they eat. But is there any way of checking that what they say is correct? In order to do so, you would need a register of the processes to which the product has been submitted, something blockchain can do.

The “proptech” companies and the most innovative financial institutions are already offering services that improve the customer experience in the real estate sector.

Four members of BBVA’s design team were invited to participate in Interaction18, the biggest technology and design event in France, to explain how design contributes to organizational change.

When San Francisco comes to mind, so do connotations of entrepreneurship and innovative thinking. So when BBVA decided to set up a course on entrepreneurship for some of the bank’s best Global Wealth clients, Northern California was its top choice.

Investor angels, or business angels, are people who invest their money in the initial phase of startups, in exchange for a participation in capital. They also usually carry out the role of a mentor and offer their consent and experience to entrepreneurs.

Your ability to build strong relationships with colleagues is critical to the success of your career. It opens doors to key projects, personal development, mentoring opportunities and promotion.

E-everything: Big tech companies now offer BaaS (Blockchain as a Service)—a way to access blockchain technology without incurring huge costs.

Fintech firms have taken advantage of the market opportunity offered by SMEs. Their formula consists of expanding the offering of financial products and services for this productive segment.

Sustainable Development is essential to achieving more peaceful and just societies and the United Nations counts on the private sector to help in this effort. The BBVA Microfinance Foundation (BBVAMF) has contributed its experience in the finance sector to the report entitled “Business and SDG 16: contributing to peaceful, just and inclusive societies,” drawn up by the Sustainable Development Goals Fund and the University of Pennsylvania.

The transformation of the economy opens the door to collaboration between big corporations and startups: they need to understand each other and collaborate. It’s a beneficial relationship for all, but one which is not always easy.

Argentina’s small and medium sized enterprises, despite being pummeled by taxes and struggling to access credit, managed to survive the collapse of consumption. Now, they are gearing up to capitalize on the improving economic outlook, thanks to the lending and tax measures that the government will roll out in short to encourage them to invest. Four our of every 10 companies say they intend to do so.

BBVA’s Group Executive Chairman was given the Vocento Corporate Leadership Award for his career achievements. Vocento recognized Francisco González as  a “corporate leader with numerous accomplishments who saw the emergence of digitization in our lives as an opportunity, and decided to turn the bank into a digital company.”

In the era of the digital economy, it’s crucial that entrepreneurs acquire the financial knowledge and skills needed to develop innovative projects with long term sustainability. That´s why the focus on education, and in particular financial education, should be widened to include entrepreneurship, especially among young people.

From a small town in Burgos province, the mobile robotics engineering firm ASTI shows that digitization provides an opportunity to restore the fabric of industry.

In the technology field, the presence of women as either entrepreneurs or investors is still very limited. However, there are more and more initiatives that view the women-technology combination as an opportunity.

The BBVA Group recently held a new edition of Live@BBVA, an in-company event that focused on new business models and support for the innovation ecosystem.

Big data is much more than a trend that´s being studied in the innovation departments of cutting-edge companies. Some multinationals have already changed forever, thanks to the strategic use of data.

BBVA is the Spanish bank with the greatest capacity to attract and retain talent, according to the results of the 12th edition of the Merco Talento study. The 2017 ranking, which is led by clothing retailer Inditex, lists the 100 best companies to work for in Spain.

An artificial inteligence startup aiming to give everyone their own virtual personal money manager  has been named as the winner of the 2017 BBVA Open Talent Competition. Israeli high-growth outfit, Change, beat off strong competition from almost a thousand entries from dozens of country around the world to secure top spot in the world’s biggest fintech competition.

The BBVA Open Talent competition has included in its ninth edition a special prize dedicated to the work of women in the financial technology space, a sector of innovation that has a markedly masculine character.

Alliances between startups and established companies are increasingly used to foment corporate innovation. Entrepreneurs and executives offer us the keys to building a successful relationship.

The main Spanish banking, energy and telecommunications companies, among other sectors, have established Alastria, the world’s first regulated national network based on blockchain. This non-profit consortium will develop the Ditributed Ledger Technology (DTL), which is set to become the new data exchange ecosystem and which will enable and accelerate the digital transformation of different industrial and business sectors in the coming years thanks to its agility, veracity, security and efficiency.

Managing internal data appropriately can be the key to optimizing a company’s human resources – from predicting whether a candidate will be successful to combating brain drain.

Investors and entrepreneurs will once again come together at the South Summit in Madrid, an encounter that has been a proven success in previous years. BBVA will have a distinguished participation in the event.

After seven years of negotiations, the Canada-Europe Trade Agreement, CETA, has entered into force provisionally.  Under this bilateral agreement, the most ambitious signed to date by Brussels, most custom duties levied on trade flows between both countries will be scrapped.

BBVA has today named B2BPay as the winner of its Open Talent Global Fintech for Companies competition. From hundreds of entries into this specific segment, the team of judges selected B2BPay as their champion because of the way their solution enables SME businesses to grow internationally and trade with greater ease.

The art market today is opening up to new audiences. Maecenas is a startup that, through blockchain technology, allows users to invest In art in a fractionated manner, as if they were shareholders in an artwork.

The United Kingdom is not the only country that has taken firm steps in its commitment to promote and regulate the fintech sector. An increasing number of regions are joining the trend to create regulatory sandboxes, in order to accelerate innovation in their business sectors and turn themselves into international hubs.

Under 30, entrepreneurs and digital. This are the common traits that define the young Europeans chosen by Forbes magazine in its ’30 Under 30′ list. A mobile navigation aide for the visually impaired, a meal kit delivery platform, a t-shirt that allows users to peek inside the human body, a nightlife finder in London… Many tech-related projects that deserve special attention.  Here we take a look at a few of them.