In mid-September, BBVA Open Platform announced that it was working with Catch to provide banking and payment services for gig workers.

Ask anybody which search engine they use to find an answer online, and chances are good, they’ll say Google. In fact, the search engine has become synonymous with searching; so much so that Webster’s Dictionary has included it as a verb, as in “We googled what Google is.” Talk about meta.

The new global partnership will enable BBVA to optimize data storage and processing capabilities that drive its commitment towards innovation in financial services.

Industry and institutions consider the Internet of things an opportunity for the present and the future that will digitize many operations and bring tremendous benefits. But it also has the ability to help combat climate change and protect the environment. This is how the Internet of Things could impact the sustainability of the planet in different areas, such as water use and energy efficiency.

What were the hottest digital transformation trends in banking in 2019? Which ones should we keep an eye on in 2020? The banking sector’s interest in the latest developments in cyber security, computing or gamification grows day by day. For disciplines such as ‘pentesting’, quantum computing or development with the Unity engine, the future looks bright.

As part of BBVA’s commitment to improving its products and value proposition for customers, the bank continues reinforcing its love story with fintech startups. With its Open Marketplace platform, the group has challenged the startups to solve four technological challenges its business units have identified in process automation, energy efficiency, international transactions and corporate financing.

Machines’ current ability to learn is present in many aspects of everyday life. Machine learning is behind the recommendations for movies we receive on digital platforms, virtual assistants’ ability to recognize speech, or self-driving cars’ ability to see the road. But its origin as a branch of artificial intelligence dates began several decades ago. Why is this technology so important now, and what makes it so revolutionary?

Will connected cars need their own bank account? The BBVA New Digital Businesses (NDB) unit is working to anticipate the opportunities and challenges that will arise in the financial industry when the Internet of Things (IoT) makes it possible to manage transactions directly among objects, people and organizations.

BBVA’s Group executive chairman participated in the Money 20/20 conference on financial technologies in Las Vegas, Nevada (U.S.), one of the most  important global events that brings together leading actors from the fintech and financial services industries. There he reiterated the need for “global, cross sector regulation” that fosters data exchange among different companies. “Customers must be the real winners,” insisted Torres Vila, stressing the idea that the free flow of data would facilitate the development of new services that will benefit citizens, society and the planet.

“According to United Nations estimates, meeting the Sustainable Development Goals will require mobilizing $5 to 7 billion per year. This explains the enormous scale of the changes that we need to address,” explained BBVA Global Head of Responsible Business Antoni Ballabriga, during speaking at the Open Summit event in Madrid. Ballabriga underlined the key role that financial institutions are called to play in a context “where sustainability is the biggest business opportunity for banks in the next 10 years”.

“The future of banking lies in financing the future.” With this phrase Carlos Torres Vila summed up his breakfast presentation, part of the “Finance and its challenges” series organized by the Deusto Business School in Madrid. According to BBVA’s executive chairman, social and environmental sustainability and the battle over customer data are the principle medium and long-term challenges facing the financial sector. “These challenges bring opportunities. Technology promises a bright future, and we have to seize the opportunities that come with it,” he maintained.

BBVA CEO Onur Genç cited the bank’s collaboration with startups as a contributing factor to the bank’s hitting its growth and efficiency targets. He made his comments at Open Summit, where he presented the grand prize for this year’s international Open Talent competition to the winning startup, Cobee. The BBVA CEO also referred to the Group’s challenges, saying, “Our goal is to monetize the technological advances we’ve made from our investment in digital transformation.”

Today BBVA celebrates its fourth annual Open Summit, the event dedicated to innovation and, as explained by BBVA’s Global Head of Client Solutions David Puente, “demonstrates our commitment to the fintech ecosystem.” Sustainability will be a featured topic throughout the day, and the Open Talent final winner will be announced.

BBVA’s Turkish bank recently participated in the Mobile Market Association’s Impact Istanbul event. Executive Vice President Didem Dinçer Başer represented the bank at the conference, where she discussed the transformational role of mobile technology and mobile marketing in the finance sector.

This week, Carlos Torres Vila attended the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Institute of International Finance (IIF) in Washington. BBVA’s Group executive chairman participated in a panel discussion on banking in the digital age, where he stated that: “Technology is a very powerful lever for financial inclusion. It allows us to reach people we never could before.”

BBVA has again been named as one of the world’s leading financial institutions when it comes to open banking. The accolade comes as part of the Open Banking Report 2019, published by online banking experts The Paypers and Innopay. The authors of the report also interviewed BBVA’s Global Head of Open Banking, Carlos López Moctezuma, drawing on his insights to explain best practice in the sector around the core themes.

Roger Launius, former chief historian at NASA was at BBVA headquarters to deliver one of the featured speeches for Values Day: “Getting to the Moon: the value of the most important idea in human history.”  Launius used the history of the Apollo program and man’s landing on the Moon as examples of two of BBVA’s corporate values: ‘We are one team,’ and ‘We think big.’

Bdeo, the winning startup for the fintech vertical at the South Summit competition, is proof positive that big companies and startups can successfully work together. Its remote claim verification solution is being used by BBVA Mexico’s insurance business, proving that efforts to find new value in the entrepreneurial ecosystem can translate into legitimate innovation for big businesses.

With technology and digitization increasingly powering the global economy, the emergence of quantum computing could prove to be a significant catalyst for innovation and growth.

According to a KPMG report, payments will retain its position as the most significant area for fintech investment in the coming years. Regtech, cybersecurity, wealthtech and proptech are other sectors on the rise. These are areas of innovation and development that the BBVA Open Talent team is also seeing, as part of the around 800 entries to this year’s BBVA Open Talent Competition, the world’s biggest fintech competition.

BBVA Chairman Carlos Torres Vila has told the biggest start-up conference in Spain that authorities around the world need to take action to unlock the true potential of data.

“You cannot walk the path of innovation alone,” said David Puente, Global Head of Client Solutions at BBVA, during the opening speech of South Summit event in Madrid. Puente also emphasized that BBVA’s commitment to entrepreneurs is one of the key elements of the bank’s strategy to advance its digital transformation.

Since SWIFT gpi was launched in 2017, BBVA has managed three million transactions – equivalent to €2 trillion – using this international payment standard. BBVA staunchly supports this global payment mechanism, which delivers speed and transparency to cross-border payments. Now SWIFT gpi aims to offer instant payments.

BBVA remains the global mobile banking leader in 2019, according to ‘The Forrester Banking Wave™: Global MobileApps Summary, 2019’. BBVA’s mobile app combines “exceptional functionality with the best user experience.” Garanti BBVA, the Group’s Turkish franchise, is also in the report, which states that it is “one of the first banks to launch an in-app, voice-activated virtual agent.”

Last week, BBVA held the first Open Talks event in Portugal. Experts from Portugal’s innovation and fintech ecosystem gathered at the Tivoli BBVA Theater to share their insights and discuss the transformation challenges facing the country’s financial system.

BBVA has joined the online training platform, Adventurees, to provide 13 startups personalized assistance that will improve their chances of success. The program kicked off at the bank’s innovation center in Madrid, BBVA Open Space.

34 years old man with a college degree and a master’s. He has spent time working as an employee yet always wanted to create his own business – and he has established more than one startup. This is the profile of a Spanish entrepreneur described in the new study by South Summit, which will hold its next event on October 2nd – October 4th, with BBVA’s support.

Cost and revenue factors impacting economic activities are often too complex to be properly modelled, in which case optimization through Artificial Intelligence (AI) can lead to academically correct solutions that fall far from being economically optimal solutions.

BBVA is working with the investment firm Anthemis on a new model to create startups. The focus of their efforts is on developing an ecosystem of talent, ideas and knowledge where new fintech business models can flourish, with the potential to transform the financial industry.

Is it possible to show that something is true without revealing the data that proves it? This is what ‘Zero Knowledge Proof’ technology proposes, a technique which employs cryptographic algorithms so that various parties can verify the veracity of an item of information without sharing the data that compose it.

We recently caught up with Open Platform’s CEO, Abhishek Gupta, to discuss the benefits of open banking, Banking-as-a-Service, and why they have the power to transform the delivery of services across a wide range of industries in the US. Following are the highlights from our conversation with him.

Soccer fandom is sweeping the nation, from the World Cup victory by the U.S. Women’s National Team to thrilling matches in Major League Soccer and the National Women’s Soccer League to the thousands of fans who pack pubs and bars to watch matches from around the world every weekend. But in sports, the game itself is no longer all that attracts fans to the arena. Tech-savvy millennials expect an “Instagrammable,” in-stadium experience, or else they’ll stay back and watch at home. Recognizing the demands of its growing fan base, Major League Soccer’s Houston Dynamo and the National Women’s Soccer League’s Houston Dash selected Extreme Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq: EXTR) Smart OmniEdge™ solution to provide high-density, professional-grade Wi-Fi connectivity in its home field, BBVA Stadium. The free fan Wi-Fi experience is presented by BBVA USA.

BBVA has a global program designed to create personalized, data-driven experiences to cater for the individual saving needs of its customers, either through recommendations, advice or proactive steps. After launching this kind of solution in Spain and Mexico, BBVA is now working to bring this program to the other countries in which it operates.

The award underscores the role that the Group is playing, spearheading the digital transformation process of the region’s financial sector by rolling out, on an ongoing basis, innovative products and services that seek to bring the age of opportunity to everyone. The publication also recognized BBVA as the best digital bank in Spain in the Corporate/Institutional category.

Many organizations now process huge amounts of data using artificial intelligence. So it is crucial to find ways to prevent unfair biases. New research by BBVA and the Universidad de Barcelona (UB) tries to achieve this with a model that automatically sorts more than 600 superheroes as “good” or “evil” while disregarding traits like gender or race.

BBVA has today unveiled the set of national finalists in the eleventh edition of BBVA Open Talent – the world’s biggest fintech competition.

BBVA announced strong results last week when it published its 2Q 2019 report – much of which was underpinned by continuous strong performance in its digital transformation.

Garanti BBVA’s data center, formerly located in Istanbul’s Güneşli district, has moved to an Uptime Institute Tier IV certified building in Pendik, also in Istanbul.

Atom bank, the UK’s first bank built exclusively for mobile and the UK’s most trusted bank on Trustpilot, has raised £50m in a fundraising round with participation from BBVA, Toscafund, Woodford Patient Capital Trust and funds advised by Perscitus LLP.

For more than 20 years Garanti BBVA has been investing in technology in order to ensure a personalized and simplified digital experience in every new product or service it offers its customers and clients. In collaboration with Google, the bank recently launched a ‘Universal App Campaign,’ aiming to increase the number of interactions in the Garanti BBVA Mobile app and to encourage customers to use the bank’s digital channels for their banking transactions.

Some organizations foment innovation in the contexts that dictate the present. But innovation is intimately tied to the future and variations of the future. Thus, inspiring creativity is also offering ideas about what is possible and forthcoming. Perhaps this is the key to true realism.

Consumers’ sensitive data is increasingly at risk as more businesses ask for personal information as a way to verify digital identity online. But what if there were a way to do that without the risk of compromising that information? Covault is leading a revolution to do just that.

Garanti BBVA’s Mobile app is a good example of how the bank is making its customers’ lives easier. All these efforts contribute to the bank’s customer-centric focus by ensuring that its tailor-made services are available – any time and any place – to both its individual and corporate customers.

Artificial intelligence systems that are capable of reasoning, creating art or even learning to teach other machines. These are a few examples of what could occur in the future with advances in deep learning. Three experts in the AI field shared their vision, concerns and hopes regarding the development of this technology during the launch of BBVA AI Factory.

Antonio Herráiz is a firm believer in innovation focused on results, especially if it generates a positive impact for people. Thanks to him, more than 7,000 of the Group’s employees across the globe have attended BBVA’s Process Academy.

BBVA and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) have signed a collaboration agreement to jointly explore the applications of quantum technologies in the financial sector.

If Cicero or Quintilianus had known about TED Talks, they probably would have included them in their repertoire of rhetorical devices. Quite possible because, just like the Romans recommended, Ted Talk orators persuade with eloquence.