BBVA Compass enlisted NBA Legend Bob Lanier and WNBA Legend Allison Feaster to tip off a WNBA Cares event last Thursday to inspire and teach financial literacy to local students at McAllen ISD’s Victor Fields Elementary School.

BBVA Compass is putting out the call to social entrepreneurs in Texas who are eager to scale up so that they can have greater impact on people’s lives. The bank will select up to 20 to participate in BBVA Momentum, an intensive seven-month training program for entrepreneurs who want to change the world through their work.

The submission period for the sixth edition of BBVA Momentum, BBVA’s social entrepreneurship program, expired last Friday, March 31st. The number of companies that have registered has exceeded all expectations. Given this great response, the organizers have decided to push back deadline until April 16.

No matter how good an idea or wonderfully designed a project are, without relying on the right collaborators, mentors and entrepreneurs, success is likely to remain elusive for entrepreneurs. Five years ago, Momentum started nurturing an ecosystem that has continued to grow ever since, bringing participants together and promoting collaboration and synergies.

Knowing how to manage money and financial tools is essential for the well-being of individuals and society as a whole. In response to this need, BBVA is offering financial education programs for people of all ages and backgrounds.

On 2014, a series of standards were passed that aimed to significantly boost financial inclusion levels. The initial and pivotal element was the Financial Inclusion Act, which builds on three pillars:

There has been an increasing focus on sustainable finance and on the impact of the climate change for the financial stability since 2015 year. Having said that, sustainable finance and the analysis of the consequences of climate change for the financial system are still in a very nascent stage and there is still a lot of work to be done. Two leading projects that are a step in the right direction are those of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Recommendations -at global level- and the creation of a European Expert Group on sustainable finance -in the EU.

Dan Rather, who got his big break covering Hurricane Carla as it barreled toward Texas in 1961, saluted the American Red Cross of Greater Houston and its supporters like BBVA Compass for their "willingness of heart" at the disaster relief organization's annual fundraising luncheon last week.

BBVA Momentum is not your typical business funding program, because it places a special emphasis on strategic mentoring, training and support. However, businesses enroll in the program for a number of reasons, including the possibility of being awarded a cash prize that will allow them increase their impact. For this reason, the new edition will continue providing access to investment, but with a different approach.

Once again this year BBVA is joining in with Earth Hour as a symbolic gesture on top of its long track record of commitment to sustainability and caring for the environment. This initiative by the World Wide Fund (WWF) is now a decade old, and raises awareness of the fight against climate change by all those who take part in it.