BBVA Mexico reports that it successfully concluded the issuing of $500 million of unsecured senior notes in international markets, with a five year maturity and an interest rate of 1.875 percent.

The Business Monitor of Corporate Reputation (MERCO) recognized BBVA Mexico for fourth year running as the country's most reputable bank. The lender also took sixth place in the overall ranking of companies. In addition, BBVA Mexico vice president and CEO Eduardo Osuna Osuna took sixth in the list of ‘Mexico’s 100 Most Reputable Executives’ published by the same consultancy.

BBVA executive chairman Carlos Torres Vila met today with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the National Palace in Mexico City. Torres Vila conveyed BBVA Group’s commitment with Mexico to the Mexican president and announced an investment of 63 billion pesos (about €2.9 billion at today's exchange rate) for the 2019-2024 period. During that time, BBVA will continue to contribute to Mexico’s economic growth by providing loans to families and businesses.

Andersen Lee, an aspiring, young chef from Montreal (Canada) has been named recipient of the scholarship that is jointly awarded by BBVA and The World's 50 Best Restaurants. Lee has been chosen from among the applicants from more than 70 countries. He will be able to perfect his culinary training working side by side with the prestigious chefs, Julien Royer, Clare Smyth, and Jorge Vallejo.

BBVA CEO Onur Genç, is still embarked on his tour across the different geographies in which the BBVA Group operates. After Spain, his next stop was Mexico, where he met with the BBVA Bancomer team, led by Eduardo Osuna.

Over the course of the work sessions, Onur Genç had the opportunity to learn first-hand about the business plans of BBVA’s Mexican franchise and discussed the countless milestones achieved by the bank in its transformation journey, with an ever increasing portfolio of digital products and services for private customers, corporates and public administrations. “What you have achieved as a team in Mexico is simply marvelous. In all metrics, BBVA Bancomer’s has done a wonderful job. You’re leading the way towards transformation,” he said.

BBVA is developing an open innovation program in the region, known as fast track, which makes it possible to streamline and make more efficient the processes that the Group develops together with startups to implement new digital products and services for the benefit of customers.

BBVA Bancomer is the first bank in Mexico to use artificial intelligence integrated with WhatsApp’s technology. Its virtual assistant facilitates the bank's communication with both customers and non-customer users, answering questions about branch location, how to open an account, and suggestions on how to use the bank's digital services.

With the creation of this engineering company, home to 1,200 technology experts, BBVA seeks to expedite its technological transformation.

Mexico's BBVA Bancomer is the Group's first bank to adopt the globally developed mobile banking platform. It will be gradually rolled-out across the rest of the countries where the Group operates, providing a speed-to-market advantage.

Reducing the impact of its business on the environment is one of the strategic goals of BBVA in the fight against climate change and in driving sustainable development. To meet this challenge, BBVA has 15 buildings that have received the renowned LEED Gold and Platinum certificates as sustainable and efficient constructions that respect the environment.

• BBVA’s mobile platform marks the start of a new transformation stage for the Group, with a solution that unifies design, functionality and user experience
• BBVA Bancomer becomes the first BBVA franchise to adopt this new development in its mobile banking solution, which will be rolled out progressively across the Group’s footprint
• BBVA already has over 24 million digital customers, of whom 19.3 million use mobile devices.
• BBVA Bancomer’s digital sales have grown from 7 percent at the end of 2015, to 31 percent in the first quarter of 2018, and are expected to hit 41 percent by the end of the year

BBVA CEO Carlos Torres Vila said this morning in Mexico that "digitization is having a huge impact on customer satisfaction,” resulting in higher levels of engagement. "Digitization is helping customers interact more with us, and they are more satisfied and loyal. This new way of interacting is a powerful lever that is transforming our value proposal, allowing us to help our clients with their lives and businesses in a deeper way,” he added.

Big data and data science have become disciplines increasingly in demand in the labor market, serving as tools of great value in training the youngest professionals. With the technological future for the region looking promising, students in Latin America are increasingly engaged in training in these areas and finding out how to apply them to real life.

Updated app provides simple, convenient way for people to move money to loved ones across borders.

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.

PSD2 and GDPR are no longer strange-sounding terms. After digital regulation caught the attention of supervisors and financial regulators in Europe during 2017, it doesn't look like 2018 will be any different, according to the Financial Regulation Outlook report from BBVA Research.

As BBVA Research points out, the digitization of finances offers opportunities and challenges not only to financial service providers and customers, but also to regulators and supervisors. Therefore, the “regulation and supervision frameworks need to evolve and adapt” to the new environment.

At BBVA, new digital solutions for customers are constantly being developed. The bank´s affiliates in Mexico, Peru and Chile are launching new tools for personal finance, implementing the use of the digital signature for contracting loans, and adding new functions to their cell phone apps.

BBVA continued leading the way to innovation in Latin America during 2017, becoming the region’s digital bank par excellence. That distinction was confirmed by Global Finance magazine, which judged BBVA’s mobile banking app to be the best in Latin America. BBVA’s local franchises in the region have set the pace in the development of products and services which, just as in the case of mobile banking, aim to make their customers’ lives easier and deliver on the Group’s intent to bring the age of opportunity to everyone.

The TCR principles are the foundation of the roadmap BBVA wants to follow to achieve its goal of becoming the leading bank in transparency, clarity and responsibility. Still, there’s a long road ahead, one that requires work on two essential levels: traditional and digital banking.

BBVA has been widely recognized for its capabilities in structured products in Latin America. Specialized publications such as Structured Products, Structured Retail Products and mtn-i have confirmed BBVA’s regional leadership in this business area, presenting the bank with numerous awards.

BBVA is set to shake up the $600 billion annual global remittance market with the introduction of its newly launched digital money transfer tool aimed at simplifying the process.

BBVA and BBVA Bancomer are piloting an FX matching application developed by Calypso Technology, a leading provider of cloud based cross asset trading software solutions for the financial markets, and enterprise software firm R3. The application, which runs on R3’s Corda platform and is facilitated by Calypso’s cloud services, has already been used by the two banks to match a test FX trade.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) is fully immersed in analyzing regulation of financial technology – better known as fintech. In the spring of 2017, the EBA began its first attempt to create a map of fintech and its regulation. The results were published in this document. The EBA found that there are more than 1,500 fintech companies in the European Union. They have detailed information about 282 of these, and 31% are not subject to any sort of regulation.

BBVA Executive Chairman Francisco González has reinforced the Group’s commitment to the U.S. after the most recent natural disasters. “We’re going to redouble our commitment to those affected through a number of actions,” he explained. In Houston, where he met with the city’s mayor, Sylvester Turner, he gave a message of solidarity on behalf of the entire BBVA Group. Francisco González also announced that he is going to visit Mexico City in the coming days to see first-hand the damages caused by the Sept. 19 earthquake.

The Pacific Alliance, made up of Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, is a regional economic and comercial powerhouse.  This area grows more than the average in Latin America. BBVA Research expects GDP growth of 1.6% and 2.3% in 2017 and 2018, respectively.  "The Pacific Alliance is a success story in integration.  And not by chance.  It shares an ambition and a set of values behind this policy, on how prosperity should be reached," said Jose Manuel González-Páramo, executive director of BBVA in Santander.

Argentina and Brazil are finally pulling out of recession and driving the economic growth in Latin America as a whole this year, despite the slowdown in other countries in the region. According to BBVA Resarch’s ‘Latin America Economic Outlook’ Q3 report, the region will grow 0.8% in 2017 and 1.7% in 2018.