BBVA Compass
BBVA Compass
BBVA has received the new Single Resolution Board’s MREL regulatory requirement, which establishes the buffer the bank must maintain to absorb losses. Starting today, the bank’s own funds and eligible liabilities must represent 22.79 percent of the total of risk weighted assets of its European resolution group (which includes the holding, BBVA S. A. and its subsidiaries in Europe). BBVA already meets this requirement.
BBVA received the Gallup Award for one of the world’s top workplaces. This marks the third time the financial institution has received this global recognition.
BBVA Global Wealth Advisors, Inc. (BBVA GWA), the U.S. subsidiary and registered investment advisor (RIA) of Madrid-based BBVA, has selected BNY Mellon's Pershing as its clearing and custody provider. BBVA GWA’s advisory clients will access broker-dealer services from Pershing Advisor Solutions (PAS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of BNY Mellon. PAS is an SEC-registered broker-dealer, member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (FINRA), and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC).
In 2023, 96 percent of power consumption at BBVA Group facilities came from renewable sources, well above the 70 percent target set for 2025. In Spain, Portugal, Colombia, Uruguay, Mexico, Peru and Türkiye, 100 percent of the bank’s power usage comes from clean energy sources.
BBVA ‘Aprendemos juntos 2030’ is debuting the second season of ‘Desafios’ (Challenges), the program in which Generation Z talks about its challenges. In the seven years since it was launched, the global project has surpassed three billion views and has over eight million followers.
On the morning of Wednesday, March 13th, the European Parliament gave its final approval of the European Artificial Intelligence Act. According to some EU authorities, this makes the bloc the first international jurisdiction with comprehensive legislation on the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
The BBVA Foundation and Salt, a non-profit cultural institution founded by Garanti BBVA, are joining forces to launch a grant program for Turkish artists, which includes a two-week residency in Spain and the opportunity to show the work produced in Türkiye and Spain.
43:09Audio
Dan Lyons is a New York Times bestselling author, screenwriter and journalist. His books include Shut Up: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World and Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Startup Bubble.
For the fourth consecutive year, on the occasion of its Annual General Meeting (AGM), the bank will donate €300,000 to social non-profits active in four areas related to the environment and inclusive growth. Asociación Talismán, Fundación Emet, Asociación Puente de Esperanza Madrid and Fundación Madre Coraje were the chosen candidates 2024.
In the past two years, BBVA added 7,187 professionals in the data and technology field to its workforce - a figure it plans to increase in 2024 with 2,700 new hires. Of this amount, 1,225 will take place in Spain for the bank’s headquarters in Madrid, Bilbao and Barcelona. Technology talent has become a key aspect of the Group’s digital strategy.
71:26Audio
Philippa Perry trained as a psychotherapist and has been working in the field of mental health for over 20 years. In 2010, she published a graphic novel, Couch Fiction, which depicts the process of psychotherapy.
BBVA shareholders largely backed the items on the agenda, which were subject to vote at the Annual General Meeting held on Friday. The bank’s corporate management received 98.2 percent of the votes. The AGM’s quorum stood at 71 percent, the highest in the bank’s history.
BBVA tapped the market Friday with a €1 billion seven-year green senior preferred bond, maturing in March 2031. Demand exceeded more than three times the initial offer, reaching €3.3 billion. The final price was set at mid-swap plus 90 basis points, significantly below the initial pricing (mid-swap plus 120 bp). Bookrunners were BBVA, Commerzbank, HSBC, Natixis and UBS.
The BBVA Group has established a new entity, BBVA Global Wealth Advisors, Inc., in Miami, Florida (USA), with the aim of serving high net-worth Latin American clients. BBVA Global Wealth Advisors joins the international wealth management service that BBVA already offers in Switzerland and Spain.
Luisa Gómez Bravo has been CFO of the Group since September 2023. She recognizes that the first few months in her new role have been very intense. After all, the Finance unit is responsible for the Group’s financial planning and monitoring, for capital, for managing liquidity and structural balance sheet risks, for relations with the Group’s investors and shareholders, and many other functions. After a historic 2023 in financial terms, Gómez Bravo predicts that 2024 will be another great year for BBVA. This will be possible, she maintains, thanks to the Group’s structural strengths: leading franchises in high growth markets and a strategic focus based on the opportunities provided by innovation, digitization and sustainability. And these focal points have been the main drivers of the bank’s growth. “BBVA’s ability to combine profitability and growth is unique in the European banking sector and it sets us apart from our competitors,” she stressed.
BBVA closed 2023 reporting good progress in decarbonizing its credit portfolio. Improvements in plan delivery reached 24 percent in key sectors —such as oil and gas— for which 2030 targets were set. As of December 2023, 80% of the finance portfolio in high-emission sectors relates to clients actively managing their transition, according to the latest TCFD report published by the bank.
The global financial services group Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (BBVA) signs a Strategic Whole Portfolio Agreement with Cisco. The agreement gives BBVA access to Cisco’s full software portfolio, world-class technology and Customer Experience (CX) services, supporting the bank’s digitization journey. Five-year agreement enables BBVA to integrate continuous innovation into daily operations, enhancing speed, agility, and offering the latest in digital financial services.
SALT, Garanti BBVA’s cultural organization, is presenting ‘Is this Our Last Chance?’, a series of documentaries on the effects of climate change. It will be running at the walk-in cinema in SALT’s Beyoğlu facilities and can also be watched online at saltonline.org between February 29 and March 24.
BBVA Technology, created by the bank in late 2023, makes the leap to Latin America. The new tech division will be headquartered in Mexico, under the brand name ‘BBVA Technology en América.’
This Tuesday, BBVA placed US$2 billion in a senior debt issue structured in two tranches: a five-year senior 'preferred' bond and an 11-year senior 'non-preferred' bond. 1,000 million dollars have been placed in each tranche, thanks to a very high demand, which has reached 6,500 million dollars, thus tripling the final amount placed. The closing price in both sections has been very competitive. The senior preferred bond has closed at T+125 basis points (compared to an initial price of T+150 basis points), while that of the 'non-preferred' senior has been fixed at T+190 basis points, below the T+215 basis points of departure.
Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (BBVA) filed on March 1, 2024 with the Securities and Exchange Commission BBVA´s Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2023.
The Annual Report can be found on BBVA’s Investor Relations website http://shareholdersandinvestors.bbva.com in the section dedicated to Financial information 2023.
New clean technologies, or 'cleantech,' will play a key role in the decarbonization of the economy. To make this possible, however, the private sector must make a firm commitment to the sustainable agenda, leading to decisive, long-term investment in firms that develop clean technologies. These were the points emphasized by speakers at the 3rd BBVA Sustainability Forum, which the bank held in the auditorium of Ciudad BBVA, Madrid, Spain, with a livestream feed. 'Opportunity' was a key word in almost every speech.
BBVA is to start on Monday, March 4th, a new share buyback program for €781 million, having received the necessary clearance from the European Central Bank. The buyback is part of shareholders’ regular distributions for 2023. In total, BBVA will distribute €4.01 billion (50 percent of the net attributable profit from last year) to its shareholders, including the dividend and this share buyback program.
Türkiye’s 17th Women Entrepreneur Awards, organized by Garanti BBVA alongside ‘The Ekonomist’ and the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Türkiye (KAGIDER) was recently held on February 27, 2024.
BBVA widens its sustainable business with a global finance unit that will focus on cleantech innovation, announced BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila at the 3rd BBVA Sustainability Forum, held Thursday at the bank's headquarters in Madrid. The specialized team, based in New York, London and Madrid, will offer lending and advisory services.
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards in Economics, Finance and Management has gone to Partha Dasgupta (University of Cambridge) for his work on the interaction between economic life and the natural environment. This research gave rise to environmental economics and “provided a framework for green accounting which is now widely adopted for measuring sustainable development,” the award committee noted.
Garanti BBVA continues to make its clients' lives easier with its digital products and services. The bank’s commercial banking clients are now able to apply for credit limits for loans online - without having to set foot in a branch thanks to Garanti BBVA's "Commercial Credit Limit Application".
The future of the banking industry is shaped by technology and Garanti BBVA is working hard to design the banking model of the future. Garanti BBVA Technology is the bank’s latest and most disruptive initiative yet so it can continue to lead digital banking in Türkiye.
BBVA’s Turkish unit has successfully issued a $500 million 10-year bond, with a coupon rate of 8.375 percent. The 10-year Tier 2 subordinated debt has a call option on the fifth year.
The financial institution had 34.7 percent women in leadership positions in 2023, with promotions of women surpassing those of men in all countries where the bank has a presence. BBVA has announced a new target for the next two years, aiming to reach 36.8 percent female managers.
The bank is sponsoring the fifth edition of the Energy Tech Summit, which will be held in Bilbao for the first time on April 10th and 11th, 2024.
Financial and economic wellness
Garanti BBVA hosts students from its social and financial leadership program ‘5 Pebbles’
Students from the ‘5 Pebbles’ program visited 21 Garanti BBVA branches across Türkiye to learn firsthand about the different transactions that take place at banks. Garanti BBVA is a founding member of the Teachers Academy Foundation (ÖRAV) and has been collaborating with them to run this program since 2016.
BBVA’s Turkish unit is launching another pioneering solution, the Bonus Platinum Biometric Card, allowing users to make payments in a secure manner by simply scanning their fingerprint. The innovative new card will be available shortly.
The Turkish central bank recently granted Garanti BBVA an operating license for its new subsidiary, Garanti Payment and Electronic Money Service, Inc., effective February 15, 2024. The innovative new company will begin offering a selected group of customers a beta version of its digital payment solutions under the TAMİ brand in March.
Garanti BBVA CEO Recep Baştuğ has secured the top spot among finance executives and seventh place overall in the latest annual "Türkiye’s Sustainability Leaders" ranking, published by the Turkish franchise of leading business magazine Fast Company.
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences has gone to Claire Voisin (National Centre for Scientific Research, CNRS, France) and Yakov Eliashberg (Stanford University, United States) for driving forward mathematical thought by bridging the space between two key areas of geometry with special relevance to quantum physics.