This award recognizes BBVA Next Technologies’ commitment using technology to face COVID-19 crisis.

The European Banking Federation recently organized a conference on innovation and cybersecurity where the role of banks in the digital economy and platform economy was discussed, among other topics. According to BBVA, the key to ensuring that financial services benefit from this economy is the creation of a framework for the different types of participating companies to compete fairly.

It’s a challenge to find out what society thinks about a company or brand, especially when you have 40 million followers spread across 10 countries and 190 social media profiles, like BBVA. Even so, the winners of the BBVA Hackathon 2020 accomplished it in only three days, developing a tool to measure users’ feelings about the bank on social media, using machine learning techniques.

Biometric advances are already being used in a multitude of financial sector processes. Artificial intelligence can analyse speech and facial characteristics to create a digital identity that allows for a much more secure online setting, where there’s a proliferation of apps from customised services to health care.

The teams will have 40 uninterrupted hours to solve one of the 12 programming challenges posed by BBVA.

BBVA remains committed to this global network, participating in a new pilot project with which it has managed to integrate payments from the SWIFT gpi network with the U.K.’s national instant payment system. Progress that makes it possible to break away from the time zone restrictions in the process, going one step further in the exploration of this kind of payment.

BBVA has launched Aqua, a new line of pioneering credit cards in Spain which feature a dynamic CVV code and do not contain card numbers (PAN) or expiration dates printed on them. This reinforces security both for its digital and physical versions since not having this data prevents possible fraudulent use of them. In addition, BBVA´s app has renewed the entire payment experience to make it easier for the customer to manage their expenses and order the services it offers based on their use. The bank is already working to launch this mobile experience in other countries.

BBVA is partnering with technology companies to be closer to its clients, who are starting to turn to third party digital vendors to cover their financial needs. “We see these partnerships as a way of growing our customer base,” stated Carlos Torres Vila, Group Executive Chairman of BBVA, speaking at a virtual panel discussion with Marcelo Claure, CEO of Softbank, that took place on the last day of South Summit.

Garanti BBVA launches Bonus Diji, a rewards credit card that is extremely secure, as it does not include any numbers or codes that can be copied.

The role of banks in the financial crisis caused by the pandemic and their role in funneling resources and funds towards a green recovery where the two key takeaways from a panel presentation devoted to sustainability that took place at the South Summit event, which is taking place this week in Madrid. “Everything is changing. We are living in a very challenging time. We are living in a global pandemic situation and also in a global economic crisis at this moment after the pandemic, so, it’s time to act,” said Head of Global Innovation & Analytics at BBVA CIB (Corporate Investment Banking) and Global Sustainability Office Ricardo Laiseca.

Garanti BBVA is betting on technology and innovation to continue leading the payment system and credit card sector. Now customers can complete the credit card application and authorization process on Bonus’ website and start enjoying all of the benefits immediately.

Blue is a virtual assistant that uses various artificial intelligence tools to help BBVA customers use the mobile application to complete tasks as well get detailed, personalized information about their accounts. This is how it works.

On May 25, 2020, the General Data Protection Regulation celebrated its second year of entry into application. As envisaged in the standard itself, the European Commission performed an assessment on its application and functioning over this period of time, taking into account the feedback provided by associations, companies, consumers and EU institutions. The commission has finally released the corresponding findings, which concludes that, on top of having a very positive impact, the COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated that the Regulation is prepared for the new digital age

In its efforts to continue supporting the financial group’s digital transformation,  BBVA Hackathon is announcing its 20th edition, which will take place on October 16th – 18th. It will be virtual this year, with countries participating where BBVA Open Innovation has a presence like Mexico, Spain, Colombia and Peru.

Through a proof of concept, BBVA and Spanish startup Multiverse have tried out and benchmarked different quantum technology platforms to solve a classic problem of finance: The optimization of investment portfolios with real market data. Thanks to this analysis, published in a scientific paper, the authors have elucidated new formulas that could help speed up this type of calculation, maximizing profitability and minimizing risk.

BBVA Garanti has become the first bank worldwide to complete integration of the new SWIFT GPI pre-validation service, an international money transfer service developed by SWIFT. Controlled testing of the service is ongoing.

BBVA USA today announced that it is collaborating with Google to offer consumers a digital bank account through Google Pay, continuing its focus on innovation in the financial industry.

British magazine, ‘The Banker,’ which is part of the Financial Times Group, has announced the results of its digital innovation in banking awards. BBVA emerged as the winner in both Europe and Latin America.

How do cybercriminals think? What techniques do they use and how do they set up to implement them? What are their goals? There’s nothing better than putting yourself inside the bad guy’s mind so you will be ready to react. We tell you how these criminals behave.

Acceleration programmes, like Open Innovation from BBVA helping startups from the fintech ecosystem, are an opportunity to offer tailored support that helps entrepreneurs to refine their model, boost their growth and access investment. In the case of the BBVA programme, the project is bringing to a close nine months of workshops, mentoring and support. For the bank and entrepreneurs, the initiative has provided an opportunity to learn together.

The sixth generation of WiFi delivers faster connectivity, expands its reach, and supports a greater density of connected devices. This technology, which goes hand-in-hand with 5G, will facilitate the rollout of sensors for the Internet of Things (IoT) and the creation of immersive and augmented virtual reality experiences.

“Hello, I’m Blue, the BBVA virtual assistant. What can I do for you today?” This is how the first virtual assistant developed entirely by BBVA introduces itself. The newly launched virtual assistant responds to more than 100 customer requests among the 800 features that are integrated in the BBVA app. This makes Blue the most comprehensive virtual assistant on the market. The new tool takes advantage of natural language processing (NPL) and machine learning, which facilitates both voice activated and text-based customer interaction with the app.

The uncertainty triggered by COVID-19 has led to a rise in cyberattacks against individuals in Spain. BBVA has therefore hosted several webinars in recent months to offer practical advice to customers and non-customers and thus alert the general public to the risk of fraud on the Internet. During these online events, involving members of the BBVA Cybersecurity team, including Roberto Ortiz, Global Head of Security Culture and Training at BBVA (People Information Security), speakers addressed the need to educate, inform and raise awareness of cyber attacks to protect the identity and finances of network users.

This partnership deal will let BBVA employees take an official master’s degree in Big Data, gain recognition as data scientists or achieve an industrial doctorate in data science. In addition, the agreement will enable students at Universidad de Navarra to carry out research alongside BBVA and even join the bank later on.

Today, a group of 16 major European banks from five countries (Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain) paved the way for the future launch of the European Payments Initiative (EPI).

BBVA’s digital development strategy of the past several years is now strongly supporting the digital management of customers’ finances. The implementation of agile work methodologies, DevOps practices—coordination across different teams throughout software development—and a global perspective were key for digital solutions to provide value and become scalable among business units and countries. Thanks to BBVA’s commitment to technology and new ways of working, the bank was able to guarantee service quality, adapt its way of working—with 90% of employees working from home—and, at the same time, enhance its response capacity.

The process of choosing startups in open innovation is proving increasingly difficult in the face of the proliferation of emerging companies globally. BBVA has various scouting mechanisms, and to do this it takes into account factors such as the degree of maturity, whether the solution dovetails with the bank’s needs, and the entrepreneurial team’s passion.

Beyond hastening the adoption of specific technologies – such as telemedicine or robotics – one of the brightest outcomes of the scenario brought about by the coronavirus pandemic has been the unprecedented collaborative spirit that has emerged, which could unleash deeper changes in technological development in the coming years. The challenges posed by the coronavirus aftermath may lead to increasing levels of data sharing and faster deployment of solutions to preserve privacy, which could help lay the foundation for new digital infrastructures.

Reliability, convenience, sustainability, trust, and security are key words consumers and businesses want to associate with their bank. The best example of where these words blend to one concrete concept in the banking industry is in data and technology.

A few weeks ago some colleagues from a development team told us about their worries on the JSON Web tokens (JWT) generation they were doing as part of a new tool integration they were working on. They had heard about several security issues regarding the use of JWT tokens so they asked us for help in order to validate if the tokens they were issuing were correct and met some basic security requirements.

We are currently working on a project to help automate security tests, APICheck, which we’ve recently released as open source. APICheck is comprised of a set of small tools that can be pipe chained in order to run several tests on API requests, so we got down to work with the development of a new tool for validating the JWT they were issuing, jwt-checker, in which we’ve implemented the ability to pass the validations on the tokens we’ll talk about. Below I’ll show you an example of a test implemented using the tool.

Ricardo Forcano, the Global Head of Engineering and Organization at BBVA, participated in a digital meeting organized by the Association for Managerial Progress (APD) entitled ‘Innovation and culture for organizational growth’.  During the event, the director explained how the current situation can serve as an impetus to redesign work methods in organizations. He also explained that BBVA is using collective intelligence and data to face the current crisis.

A recent article by MIT Sloan Management Review highlighted the innovations in data wrapping that companies like BBVA and PepsiCo are pushing into the markets.

Essential remote working has forced a change to on-site employee training plans. BBVA had already espoused a culture of online learning before the pandemic, offering its staff a comprehensive digital training catalog via the Campus BBVA platform. The platform has been refreshed to adapt to employee needs during the weeks of confinement. Employee response has been positive: traffic to the training portal shot up 96 percent with more than two million sessions during the first month of lockdown. A review of the most consumed topics reveals employees’ growing interest in developing new competencies (data, design, sustainability), which are priority for BBVA and and even more apropos given the new reality that awaits.

On 26 and 27 May 2020 the European Innovation Council (EIC), BBVA and Ferrovial are jointly hosting their first online EIC Corporate Day, bringing together 19 of the most innovative startups in Europe. The online EIC Corporate Days are the digital version of the physical events in where the European Commission connects Europe’s most innovative companies and innovators with C-level corporate and cross sectorial decision makers.

Joaquín Dopazo is leading a project that uses a machine learning algorithm to identify proteins involved in the illness and cross match this information with a database of drugs used to treat other conditions. “We checked if some of the proteins detected are therapeutic targets of other medications approved for other uses, and we concluded that these treatments could act on the mechanisms that COVID-19 uses to cause harm,” says the researcher, who in 2018 won a BBVA Foundation team grant in the Big Data category.

BBVA’s Turkish franchise has improved the landing page of its Garanti BBVA Mobile app with an improved design and new digital banking features.

A BBVA Research study leverages big data technology to monitor worldwide media treatment of COVID-19. Analyzing more than 80,000 online news publications in more than 100 languages, the study concludes that both the extent of news coverage and its sentiment provides valuable information about the pandemic’s development and the degree to which it impacts the economy and politics. Furthermore, a correlation between increased number of infections and ‘media stress’ has been observed.

BBVA now has more than 500,000 customers registered exclusively through digital channels in Spain: more than 50% did so via cellphone. In 2016, BBVA launched the option of becoming a customer using a ‘selfie’, boosting acquisition of new customers via digital channels. This service and the other alternatives that BBVA offers to users to become customers has become more important than ever after the outbreak of the pandemic and the state of emergency, which advises against travelling.