On Sunday, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston opened its latest in a long line of collaborations with BBVA USA: The traveling exhibition Glory of Spain: Treasures from the Hispanic Society Museum & Library.

The Madrid Metro celebrated its 100th anniversary, bringing its one million daily passengers closer to the Spanish capital in a quick and sustainable manner. BBVA is especially pleased to join the centennial anniversary of its opening, made possible thanks to the financial support provided by the Banco de Vizcaya despite investors’ suspicion of this novel and pioneering form of transportation.

“We are our memory, we are that chimerical museum of shifting shapes, that pile of broken mirrors.”

― Jorge Luis Borges, in Praise of Darkness

The oldest private domestic bank in Argentina and one of the leaders in Latin America, BBVA Francés on October 14 marked its 130th year in operation and its 21st year as part of the BBVA Group. In the course of its history, BBVA Francés has gone from being a 20th century “temple of money,” to a powerhouse of digital banking in the Argentina of the 21st century.

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.

The BBVA Historical Archive is a private business archive that traces its roots back 160 years, to the bank´s founding in 1857. Located in Bilbao, it houses the basic documentation of the three banks that would later form BBVA: Banco de Bilbao, Banco de Vizcaya and Argentaria. During the 19th and most of 20th Century, their geographical context was largely limited to Spain; it was only at the end of the 20th century that BBVA began its international expansion.

When the deep crisis of the first half of the 1980s was over, the banking sector had undergone a process of consolidation. After restructuring, the most stable and solvent banks took over those that had not been able to survive the depression. The most important banking groups grew stronger, but had to take even more ambitious and decisive steps to meet the challenges posed by the new European landscape.

The 1973 oil crisis, which arose due to the tensions that led to the Yom Kippur War, set off a global chain reaction that also affected Spain. The increase in commodities prices, and a steady decline in Spain’s economic cycle, led to truly difficult times for the banking sector. The upward trend that had begun in the early 1960s was immediately stopped, and worrisome warning signs began to appear, such as an increase in unemployment and a fall in the value of money.

BBVA’s expansion to the U.S. came after it found success in South America and Mexico. The U.S. was an attractive market from a demographics standpoint, with a growing population, a solid economy - which also happened to be the world’s largest - and a positive banking environment. Also, given the Group’s leadership in Latin America, the U.S. with its large and growing Hispanic population was a natural choice.

The subsequent legal reform that took place in the 1950s and early 1960s bore their fruit in the economy and in the banking sector. In the latter, the biggest banks, especially those from Vizcaya, were stronger thanks to a liberalized panorama that enabled their growth and expansion following two complicated decades in the Franco regime.

The Spanish economy was at a delicate point at the end of the 1950s. Following the civil war, Franco’s dictatorship managed to revive the economy through major intervention and the imposition of a strong autarchy that isolated Spain commercially from the western countries. The economy grew through these severe measures but indicators such as inflation began to be a concern. The time had come to change the rules of the game, at least in part.

Banco de Vizcaya, which was founded in 1901, over four decades after Banco de Bilbao, had had only two top executives up until the 1940s. Like Banco de Bilbao, its major competitor in Vizcaya, the true head of Banco de Vizcaya was its management, and not its Board Chairman.

International Red Cross Day is celebrated each year on May 8 to commemorate the birth of the organization’s founder, Henry Dunant. After witnessing war first-hand, the Geneva businessman wrote a book that inadvertently gave rise the the largest humanitarian aid society in history.

Minister Benjamin’s Banking Law of 1946 further pulled in the already tight reins on the Spanish banking sector. In spite of everything, the two banks from Bilbao managed to grow and to distinguish themselves amongst their national competitors. Even before the greater growth that took place during the 1950s, Banco de Bilbao and Banco de Vizcaya had ended the 1940s in very good health.

As Franco’s government endeavored to rebuild the economy of country in shambles, companies started focusing on their own efforts to lay the foundations of their businesses in a new market, marked by much tighter government control and the impossibility of engaging in any sort of foreign commercial activity. As for banks, they faced the daunting task of putting back together the two realities into which the sector had been split during the war.

When Juan Vespucci drew the first complete image of the world, 500 years ago, he could have never imagined that his Mapa Mundi would be flying around the world from a still not very well traced location in North America. 200 artistic treasures from the most prominent collection of Spanish art outside the Iberian Peninsula have travelled from the home of the Hispanic Society of New York, to dress up the walls of the Prado Museum, from April 4th through September 10th.

Since the acquisition of Credit Uruguay in 2011, BBVA has established itself as the second private financial institution in the country. In this position, our goal is to help our customers make better financial decisions, offering unique products and services for everyone. An effort our customers have recognized, making us the top bank in Uruguay in the net promoter score.

More than 100 years old, the changes that the building has undergone are a testament to our evolution as a country.

On top of the issues that the banking industry as a whole was struggling with as a result of Spain being split in two and the constant shifting of its borders, Banco de Bilbao and Banco de Vizcaya were affected by another player due to their origin: the Basque government. The autonomy achieved during the later stages of the Republic by the Basque region would lead José Antonio Aguirre’s government to make more than a few economic decisions during the conflict.

One of the thorniest consequences for the banking industry of the outbreak of the war and the country’s division into two opposite sides was the inability to carry accurate and reliable accounting records. Already in 1936, after barely six months of conflict, banks were not able to close their accounting books.

With Spain’s banking industry divided in two, and some of the banks’ CEOs and directors going over to the enemy, it was the professionals at the savings banks and banks who made it possible for everyday life to be as normal as possible within the confines of such a harsh war. To the extent possible, executives and workers came up with ways to get by.

The political climate before the civil war was anything but peaceful. The differences between the buoyant conditions in cities and the complex socio-economic juncture in rural areas were substantial. The policies that the Ministry of Finance adopted, when not directly pointless, were mostly ineffective. All this notwithstanding, the government that emerged from the 1936 elections did not adopt a bellicose stance against the Spanish banking sector.

The early 1920s were overshadowed by the defeat of the Spanish army in Morocco in 1921. The battle that would become known as the "Disaster of Annual" represented the loss of Spain's dominions in the neighboring African country, and the fallout from the military debacle led to harsh criticism of the political regime, the military establishment and even the King himself.

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.

He travels incognito in a big wooden box that reveals neither the contents nor the destination. Completely immobilized and protected from any impact, Charles II arrives in Puebla by land and by air. The International Museum of the Baroque in Puebla anxiously awaits the arrival of this King’s portrait - part of the BBVA Collection. It hangs in one of the rooms of the exhibition “The Art of Nations: The Baroque as Global Art”. There nothing disturbs the monarch who probably never dreamt he would one day visit Mexico.

Civil wars, banks that went almost as fast as they came, the brand-new issuing monopoly of the Bank of Spain, unrest in Spanish overseas territories… the later years of the 19th century sure did look challenging for institutions such as Banco de Bilbao. Although the bank had earned a solid footing in its home city, Spain’s situation at that time made it hard to tell how it would fare in the short and medium term.