The U.S. total fertility rate continues its downward trend, falling to its lowest point in 48 years at 1.77, according to a white paper published by BBVA Research this week. The report goes on to identify both the cause and the impact of this drop.

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.

Anthropological theories about the transformation of our species have multiplied since Darwin first began positing new ideas about the origin of mankind with his theory of evolution. To become the ‘Homo sapiens‘ of today, human beings have had to undergo a process of change that has occurred over millions of years and has resulted in physical, cultural, and linguistic variations.

For many Americans, Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer, replete with BBQs, time with friends and family and the first foray into the pool. But, even as we set about celebrating the freedom we have, it’s incumbent on us to not forget those who gave their all in service to our country.

The movie ‘The Social Network’ (2010) tells the story of Facebook, a social network community initially only used by Harvard students. Less than thirteen years later, the social network numbers 2 billion active users per month. A small group of “giants” control the majority of Internet communities, but what about other social networks that are attractive to different niches?

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.

With the recent evolution in the realm of HR technology, there has been a rise in the number of organizations leveraging data and using it to obtain insights that drive their decision-making process. This data-driven perspective leads to a remarkable shift in the role of HR, advancing its function from reactive to proactive; from tactical to strategic. In a recent HR Tech Outlook feature, BBVA Compass Director of People Analytics Morgan Turnipseed shared knowledge on how workforce analytics is becoming an integral business component at the bank.

Whether it’s chatting, finding your soul mate or jotting down notes, there are few things that twentysomethings and younger people can’t do on a smartphone. With so many applications available for smartphones, which are the ones most preferred by millennials?

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.

Campus BBVA is the BBVA Group’s corporate university. It’s a training center where the bank offers all its employees the content, platforms and tools they will need to learn about during the course of their professional careers.

All organizations operate at what is known as the edge of chaos. It is a transition space between order and disorder, a region of bounded instability, where forces both progressive and conservative battle for control. A manager may have a three-year strategy, and the protocol, teams and departments in place to deliver it, but realizing that strategy means contending with countless disruptive events; a new competitor entering the market, a shift in consumer behavior – even, perhaps, the manager’s own desire to retire to a quiet village on the countryside.

Whether it was an image of a dog, a grumpy cat, a disguised hyperlink to Rick Astley, or an illustrated stickman called Bill, you’ve probably seen – and maybe even shared – a meme in the past 24 hours.

Exhibitionism is one of the defining traits of today’s society. We have access to every imaginable way to take pictures, store them, upload them, share them and comment on them.

Creating Opportunities is BBVA Compass’ mission and brand promise. The person tasked with leading the team that brings that brand to life through multiple channels was honored this past week by the marketing leadership community organization, The CMO Club.

They’re always popular with users of Android mobiles and they’re a fixture on any smartphone. Weather applications allow you to be always informed, in real time, about the meteorological conditions at a given place. Some of these apps are free, others have a cost; some are well known and others are just making a name for themselves in the market.

BBVA Compass received a perfect score of 100 percent on the 2018 Corporate Equality Index, a measure of workplace equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees that serves as a benchmark for some of the country’s largest and most influential workplaces.

Only two months ago, it was just an experiment. Twitter decided to double the number of characters per message for certain selected accounts. The goal was to find out whether the traditional 140-character limit was an obstacle to the best use of the application.

The tenth month of the year is the most ‘summertumn’ of all. Check iWeather on a smartphone to see if it’s too cold to wakeboard. Use a laptop to find the best less-mainstream brunch spot in the Malasaña neighborhood. Having a hard time understanding? Maybe some millennial tips are needed to learn the slang.

The objective is not an easy one to achieve: making sure that the products that reach the market are the ones customers need and demand. The task is even more complicated if production must be speeded up, in order to reach the market before the competition. Tech companies were pioneers in facing this challenge; they did so by using agile methods, a way of working that has played a key role in the success of companies like Google and Spotify, and which BBVA has made a fundamental tool in accelerating its digital transformation.

Turning speech into text can be a simple and efficient solution for less proficient typists or for people in a hurry. For this purpose, there are currenlty quite a few tools and apps that allow users to dictate what they want to write and quickly turn it into text.

Sex, religion, and politics, along with harmony and trust, gave birth to money. At first, there was barter. Later came coins and bills, which have now given way to the network age, a world in which space and time have disappeared and transactions are conducted in bits. In order to understand the present and predict the future, Chris Skinner reflects on the history of money in his book, ‘The Next Step: Exponential Life’, which can be downloaded online free of charge as part of BBVA’s OpenMind project.

Getting to New York in 30 minutes or Hong Kong in just 22 minutes is not an impossible task for Elon Musk and his company SpaceX. The man who also created the superson train project that is capable of traveling at a speed of 1,200 km/hr just showed the world his latest project to reach Mars. The plan includes a preliminary phase that involves traveling across the planet in rockets.

Hurricane Harvey, one of the most damaging hurricanes in U.S. history, might have put on a show during its destructive performance across Texas, but the philanthropic efforts of BBVA Compass employees also took center stage. Although the storm made a costly appearance, the bank’s team members demonstrated how the invaluable impact of helping others could be enough to outlast the the storm’s moment of fame.

If the perfect worker could be made from a recipe, you would not be alone in expecting intellect to be the most important ingredient. It is the smart kids who grow up to be top performers. At least, that’s what conventional wisdom tells us.

Digital financial services are within everyone´s reach, but each generation has its own peculiarities when using them. Mobile banking apps have won over the centennials, while social networks influence Generation Y when it comes to changing banks, and Generation X confides in online banking. The baby boomers, meanwhile, prefer to take a stroll to the branch office.

BBVA Compass, which has channeled $79 million in community development loans and investments in rural Texas communities since 2015, was honored with a Rural Matters award last month at the Texas Rural Challenge.

Halfway into its five-year, $11 billion commitment to serving low- to moderate-income communities, BBVA Compass has made tens of thousands of pinpoint investments and loans that have changed lives and created opportunities.

BBVA Compass is sponsoring the Houston Pride Parade for the fifth year in a row, putting its signature blue colors atop the main festival entrance this weekend in a show of support for one of the nation’s largest Pride Celebrations.

Age makes a difference – a big one – when it comes to downloading apps. Centennials prefer Snapchat, Instagram and Vine. Millennials like Tinder and Soundcloud. Generation X looks for apps to watch movies and for travel. And baby boomers? They prefer apps to monitor their health.

Dozens of families in one of the areas where the country’s digital divide is the widest will be getting free internet access thanks in part to BBVA Compass’ steadfast commitment to using the power of digital to create opportunities in its communities.

Edufin Summit 2017, the first annual meeting of the BBVA Center for Financial Education and Capability, has a packed agenda full of the sector’s latest trends. One of the most relevant topics at this summit will be behavioral economics, or in other words, how people’s behavior affects the economy.

Financial literacy is an essential skill for life. That is why the low results obtained in general by 15-year-old students in the PISA Report on Financial Literacy are cause for concern. Given this situation, it appears a good idea to analyze the country that is in 1st place in the ranking: What is China doing that others aren’t?

A total of 87 entrepreneurs from five countries have been selected to participate in BBVA Momentum 2017, the most global edition of BBVA’s program of social entrepreneurship. The selection was made from among a total of more than 700 candidates from Spain, Mexico, the United States, Colombia and Turkey.

Brands are hiring influencers to reach out the masses. Companies are paying dizzying sums of money for a picture. They say the investment is worth it. However, trusting communications to people outside an organization entails risks.

On May 24, the OECD will release the results of the PISA 2015 Financial Literacy Skills. The final data will determine whether the students that have taken this important test are able to solve basic financial problems, make informed decisions about day to day expenses or use a credit card.

It’s the test with a capital “T” in global education. In each edition, the results of the increasingly influential PISA report become a fundamental guide in educational matters for the participating countries.

We tend to configure our computers, our Smartphones, our social media and even our television. Digital adjustment allows us to adapt our devices and programs to our needs. But can we also configure ourselves?

The debates about potential impact of ageing for institutions and economies, the fiscal sustainability of the pension and welfare systems are based on a convention that was established one century ago: the definition of 65 years as the fixed threshold at which old age and economic dependency begins.

Today we celebrate International Mobile Phone Day in commemoration of the device that has become an essential part of our lives, profoundly changing society and the way we communicate.

We live with cell phones, but… Do we really know how to coexist with cell phones? Are we aware of all the information we put in our cell phones? Are we prepared to use them without compromising our security?

The Indian Doctors Association of Houston held its annual gala on Friday, celebrating key community achievements and providing scholarships to young, aspiring doctors.

“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas”. This is one of the most famous quotes from renowned scientist Marie Curie. IT was, precisely, her interest in the world that led her to become the first woman to ever win a Nobel prize, at a time when women were rarely allowed to pursue University studies, at least in Poland.

Promoting financial knowledge and helping people acquire the skills that allow them to improve their lives and access better opportunities. That’s the goal of the Center for Financial Education and Capability – the center BBVA is launching in collaboration with globally renowned institutions and organizations.

On Jan. 23 BBVA Compass, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, Houston Downtown Management District and Visit Houston joined Houston Bike Share to cut the ribbon at its newest Bcycle station in Downtown Houston. The opening of the “Crawford Island” station was celebrated in tandem with the launch of Houston Bike Share’s “BBVA Compass Free Rides” program, an initiative offering free Bcycle rides in Houston from Jan. 27 through Feb. 5.

Here are the top ten Twitter accounts you should be following to stay up to date on the fintech sector.

The new year is a chance to finally fulfil all those resolutions that you did not manage to fulfil the year before. For all of us it is a time to begin from scratch, which is why it is important that we make a good start. For the Spanish this means swallowing down twelve grapes in time with the twelve strokes of midnight, and it is paramount that they are all eaten!  But what about the rest of the world? Every place has its own tradition, but they all coincide that it must be followed in order to get the best out of the coming year.

From locating an unknown address to identifying the name of the song playing on the radio, apps can do almost anything. Although the app boom is over, users still download millions of them every day. This year, Snapchat was the most downloaded app in the Apple Store, according to Time magazine, followed by Messenger, Pokémon GO, Instagram and Facebook.

Everyone should have access to basic financial services by 2020. This goal, set by the World Bank, aims to combat the financial exclusion that impacts two billion people. Several organizations from the public and private sector, including BBVA Microfinance Foundation, have signed the Universal Financial Access 2020 (UFA), committing to meet this deadline.

Having a bank account is the first step to access basic financial services, such as loans or insurance, which help underprivileged families to receive essential services like water, electricity, housing, education or healthcare. It also allows small and medium sized businesses to grow, expand operations and improve risk management.

Just as the BBVA Group is reinventing itself to offer the best customer experience and customer experience and lead the new financial industry, we at BBVA Paraguay are hard at work to contribute to this transformation process. And we have the best talent in the country to do so.