Carlos Torres Vila studied at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which is where he gave his first interview since becoming BBVA’s Executive Chairman. He was in Boston to present OpenMind’s new book, ‘Towards a New Enlightenment? A Transcendent Decade’ and sat down with the Spanish newspaper, ‘El Mundo,’ to discuss the explosion of technology in the banking industry. He believes data is fundamental: “It is crucial that the data revolution is universal. The most vulnerable in society cannot be left behind.”

At an event organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, BBVA’s Group executive chairman presented Openmind’s new book, ‘Towards a New Enlightenment? A Transcendent Decade‘. Carlos Torres Vila and two contributing authors, Joanna Bryson and Sandy Pentland, discussed the implications of big data and artificial intelligence in the current technological context and its role in the so-called fourth industrial revolution.

BBVA is one of the founding members of the International Association of Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA), which was officially launched today in Brussels.  Carlos Kuchkovsky, CTO of New Digital Businesses at BBVA, represents the only Spanish company on the new association’s ten-member Board.

In line with its digital transformation strategy, BBVA has launched a new form of corporate loan, the digital facility (D-Loan), and signed the first ever financing of this kind with Olam International, a leading food and agri-business company headquartered and listed in Singapore. As provider of this innovative solution, BBVA acted as digital advisor and coordinator under the new USD 350 million revolving credit facility. BBVA was also the facility agent for the other 6 banks that participate in the financing.

Digital loans (or D-loans) are a type of corporate bank financing (which could also come in the form of credit facilities) for which the price is linked to the company’s degree of digitization. The digital maturity level is determined annually by specialized independent consulting firms after a thorough analysis. If the company improves its level of digitization, the conditions of the bank financing also improve. By doing so, the company aligns its financial instruments with its corporate strategy, and has a financial incentive to improve its degree of digitization and accelerate its digital transformation over time.

NASA’s Space Apps Challenge, one of the world’s most popular hackathons, has, once again, awarded a group of Spaniards, in this case the time behind ‘Galaxy Quest.’ The project helps processing real data collected by the Hubble telescope through a ‘gamification’ process.  But not only that:  It is the first step in developing an artificial neural network using these data, and a new communications channel between NASA and users.  José Luis Martín-Oar, service designer at BBVA and one of the team’s members, tells us everything about the project.

Garanti Bank has launched a new series of training seminars for entrepreneurs. The Garanti Partners Meetup series supports Turkey’s ecosystem of entrepreneurs by providing master classes on relevant topics.

eKampüs, the Teachers Academy Foundation’s (ÖRAV) distance education platform has been restructured with updated content as part of the foundation’s digital transformation.

The European Commission (EC) is convening institutions, businesses, and regulators today and tomorrow in BBVA’s headquarters in Madrid with the aim of promoting security and privacy measures that will stimulate greater use of cloud services and the free flow of data in Europe’s digital single market (DSM). BBVA is hosting the event and is an active member of the EC working group, which is seeking to standardize security certification for cloud providers and establish a code of conduct that will facilitate data portability and the ability to switch providers.

Every parent has been in this position: the baby cries and cries, and we don’t know why. Is it hungry? Is it tired? Ana Laguna, data scientist at BBVA Data & Analytics, asked herself the same questions when her first child was born. Ana looked for an app that would help her understand why her baby was crying.  But she didn’t have any luck. Then she thought she could translate her baby’s crying and understand what it needed any time by using the artificial intelligence techniques that she uses everyday at work.

Between 2018 and 2022, the business springing up around technologies blending the real and virtual worlds is expected to grow 700%.

BBVA has been named by digital banking consultants 11:FS as one of the world’s best digital providers – for the second year in a row.

Creating global products is one of the keys to BBVA’s transformation and represents one of its main challenges to becoming a digital company. The goal is to develop solutions that incorporate the Group’s best practices and whose components can be reused. In doing so, the bank is more efficient, can go to market more quickly, and creates a single user experience across the bank’s operating countries.

In an article, Forbes praises BBVA’s digital strategy and technological deployment, as well as the AI-powered apps that the bank is already using to deliver better solutions to its customers.

Financial authorities will soon begin an unprecedented countdown. In 2018, fintech became an entrenched priority for the financial sector, and a multitude of strategies emerged to address the challenges of digitization. In 2019, financial authorities should take action and implement a global approach to the challenges of the new era. This is the conclusion detailed in BBVA Research’s latest report, ‘Financial Regulation Outlook 1Q19’.

The virtual replica of a real product, service or system can help anticipate potential issues and curb risks by testing new functionalities before rolling them out.

BBVA’s Group Executive Chairman Carlos Torres Vila explained just why cooperation between banks and the fintech ecosystem is key. He also made a powerful case for a G20 coordinated approach to digital regulation to foster innovation and drive competition at an event in Paris, alongside the IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde.

So-called “stable cryptocurrencies” such as Tether and DAI have emerged in response to the volatility of virtual currencies like bitcoin and ether.

BBVA backed fintech investment fund Propel Venture Partners has welcomed a new business to its portfolio – and it’s first investment into India. The fund has taken part in the $6.2m Series A funding round in Groww, a fintech business looking to change the way in which people on the subcontinent invest.

Fintechs and major tech corporations have started rolling out new financial services that have the potential to severely disrupt the financial sector.  BBVA Research has just published “Digital Transformation and Competition in the Financial Sector,” a working paper that analyzes the regulatory challenges emerging in this new scenario to guarantee that customers can reap the benefits enabled by new technologies while ensuring fair competition conditions in an increasingly diverse ecosystem.

The world of video games is an economic and creative reality. Its possibilities are not limited to its recreational aspects; it is an industry that employees a multitude of people. According to the latest report by Newzoo, gaming generated more than €100 billion in 2018. And in an article that cites the Newzoo report, CNBC points out that this represents an increase of more than 13 percent compared to the previous year. The gaming industry encompasses video games, games for mobile devices, and eSports.

Each year the Las Vegas CES technology trade fair becomes a parade of outlandish devices as the the big industry trend-setters make their announcements for the coming year. Manufacturers like LG and Samsung compete to show off the latest models of their flexible displays or connected household appliances, while the likes of Amazon and Google continue the battle to place their virtual assistants in as may products as possible. What happened this year?

BBVA created the Global Head of Data position in March 2017 as part of its strategy to make decisions based on data. David Puente took on this new role, leading one of the most disruptive and essential projects in the bank’s transformation.

The trends described below will be the major disruptors that continue to shape the future of the new year in the age of digital transformation.

It’s time for holiday shopping and a bit more free time. The perfect time to recommend several books that help explain the digital revolution and its context.

BBVA and the European Investment Bank Group (EIB) have signed a synthetic securitization of €1 billion. The agreement is a very innovative financing operation, as it is the first synthetic securitization to be supported by blockchain technology in the European Union and the third synthetic corporate loan securitisation signed by the EIB Group and BBVA. Moreover, BBVA and EIB Group will provide €360 million to finance investments projects of SMEs and midcaps.

According to BBVA Next Technologies’ experts, these are four of the emerging platforms of the blockchain technology to watch out for next year.

BBVA and Porsche Holding Salzburg, the largest and most successful automotive distributor in Europe and a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, closed a €150 million term loan backing strategic acquisitions in the retail distribution network in Europe and Asia.

Carlos Torres Vila took part in the ‘14th Banking Industry Meeting’ organized by IESE and EY in Madrid. BBVA’s CEO spoke about how digital transformation reflects on the outside, but originates inside organizations. In the current environment, he believes that banks need to harness the potential of new technologies to create opportunities for their customers. “We think big, not only in the sense of being ambitious, but of being innovative, breaking molds and surprising the customer,” he said.

Identification using authentication like digital fingerprints and facial or iris recognition is making inroads in the world of airports where companies are looking for new technologies to enhance the user experience.

In a world flush with acronyms – hello, banking! – “API” might seem like the latest notable term. But the truth is, APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, have been on the scene for many years, and was made popular in the year 2000 when SalesForce officially launched its web-based sales force automation.

BBVA customers can now use an app that predicts their future income and expenses (Bconomy). Now, BBVA has developed —together with Google Cloud— an artificial intelligence model that would allow them to improve the accuracy of predictions. This model is explained in a white paper that also offers users recommendations on ways to protect the privacy of their data.

BBVA Compass Head of New Business Development Pepe Olalla says in 2019 early stage technologies will mature – for example more use cases for blockchain – but it’s AI-related technology that will take center stage.

A group of prominent innovation leaders and experts gathered recently in Paris to attend the Innovation Leaders Summit, organized by the MIT Technology Review. BBVA’s was the only major bank to take part as speaker at the event. Here, it debated on current topics, such as the role of blockchain in the emerging tokenized economy and the security challenges posed by quantum computing.

This new computing paradigm will reduce latency and streamline data traffic coming from millions of devices on the Internet of Things.

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.

Friday November 30 is International Computer Security Day (ICSD), a day that aims to raise awareness and remind society about the importance of protecting both company and personal computer resources in order to prevent the misuse of financial and personal data, and even identity theft.

BBVA has been recognized by the Financial Times (FT), Google and a panel of leading European policy makers as one of the 100 digital pioneers in Europe. BBVA is the only major bank included in a special report from the Financial Times, ‘Europe’s Road to Growth,’ because of its innovative use of new technologies, as well as the cultural shift that the company has undertaken.

BBVA is one of the first five banks invited to join a blockchain forum organized by the European Commission (EC) in Brussels to, subsequently, join the launch of the IATBA, an European platform to promote the use of blockchain. The purpose of this publicly-sponsored initiative is to garner support from private blockchain and DLT experts to contribute to outline the EU’s strategy regarding these technologies.

Upturn, a new venture incubated by BBVA and aimed at changing the financial health of up to 22 million U.S. residents a year, has today been launched in the U.S.

The digital revolution has social consequences that must be understood and managed. Nobel Laureate in Economics Joseph Stiglitz says the key is to ensure that inequality does not increase.

BBVA collaborated with a research team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop a model that can reduce the level of false positives in fraudulent card transactions up to 54 percent, thanks to algorithms based on machine learning.

At the Atlantic Council in Washington DC, BBVA Group Executive Chairman Francisco González presented ‘The Age of Perplexity’ – the tenth installment of OpenMind’s book series, which explores the profound transformation brought about by the digital revolution. In his opinion, the combination of globalization and rapidly developing technology has led to an era of political and social change. This period is both the cause and effect of a state of deep uncertainty, which focuses primarily on the future of the economy and employment.

The arrival of new blockchain platforms, advances in cloud computing and the consolidation of new machine-human interactions, are among the hottest trends according BBVA Next Technologies ‘Tech Radar 2018‘, a report that shines the spotlight on some the most relevant tools and practices in 2018, as well as those that will mark the next years in fields such as big data and artificial intelligence.

Driverless cars capable of behaving like bird flocks, software capable of playing sheets of music composed during the Renaissance, algorithms capable of analyzing emotions expressed by social media users and tools for boosting people’s learning abilities… These are just some areas on which the winners of this year’s edition of the Spanish Computer Science Society (SCIE) – BBVA Foundation Research Awards have focused their work.

One of the core themes BBVA has been exploring at the Money20/20 U.S. event this year has been the power of networks.

Some 75 percent of the world’s population  —77 percent in the case of Spain— feels overwhelmed by the constant buzz of information that marks digital life.

Devices with combined cloud technology and neural networks integrated into their hardware – to reduce potential stability, privacy, and latency issues – are now a reality.