Not long ago, companies seeking to finance an acquisition or refinance debt had a relatively predictable path to follow. Banks arranged syndicated loans, institutional investors provided much of the capital, and the leveraged loan market served as the primary source of financing for many corporate transactions.

The partnership was formalized during a meeting in Ankara between COP31 President and Türkiye's Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, Murat Kurum, and Garanti BBVA CEO Mahmut Akten.

In this new episode of BBVA Greenfluencers, we explore how sustainability is shaping the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s approach to sustainable infrastructure finance.

Garanti BBVA has developed a new treasury solution to help companies trading with the European Union manage the carbon cost risk arising from potential price fluctuations in Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM¹) certificates through derivative products. As part of this initiative, Garanti BBVA introduced an early solution in Türkiye by structuring and executing a transaction to help Medcem Cement Group manage and hedge its CBAM-driven price risk. Through this innovative solution, Medcem Cement Group has gained greater predictability over its future CBAM certificate costs by managing a portion of the price risk associated with the CBAM certificates underlying the transaction today

Garanti BBVA has issued a $30 million sustainable bond under its international funding program to finance projects focused on climate change adaptation and resilience.

In a previous article, we explored how BBVA is scaling its Machine Learning capabilities with a new architecture based on AWS technologies. This second article details how we have tested with four initial use cases to identify reusable ML patterns, standardize operational workflows, and design extensible templates that accelerate ML delivery while maintaining governance and flexibility across teams and business domains.

Garanti BBVA has received six awards at the 2026 Euromoney Awards for Excellence, recognizing the bank’s leadership in retail banking, consumer lending, diversity and inclusion, and corporate social responsibility. The bank was named Best Retail Bank, Best Bank for Consumer Lending, Best Bank for Diversity and Inclusion, and Best Bank for Corporate Social Responsibility in Türkiye, in addition to awards for Best Bank for Consumer Lending and Best Bank for Diversity and Inclusion in Central and Eastern Europe.

If every crisis also creates an opportunity, then since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—and even more so since the conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran—Europe has entered a period full of possibilities, with strong incentives to continue reducing its dependence on imported energy and strengthening its competitiveness. But opportunities do not automatically mean results. They take time to materialize, require perseverance, and often come at a significant cost.

Euromoney has selected BBVA as the best bank in the world for customer experience in 2026. This recognition underscores the core of the bank’s strategy: seeing the world through the customer’s eyes. Through this approach, the bank aims for excellence in execution, surprising customers with a unique value proposition and offering personalized solutions. The bank also won the award for the best bank in the world for diversity and inclusion, as well as the best bank in three countries: Türkiye, Argentina and Peru.

The bank has participated from the go-live of Swift’s new retail scheme, a global initiative that establishes a common rulebook to deliver faster, more transparent, predictable and 24/7 international payments for individuals and SMEs.

The international magazine Global Finance has recognized BBVA as World’s Best Bank in Emerging Markets in the 2026 edition of its World’s Best Bank awards, which honor banks based on criteria such as performance, reputation and management excellence. This recognition joins the other awards the BBVA Group recently received from the same publication, including the World’s Most Innovative Bank, recognition of Garanti BBVA as the Best Bank in Türkiye and the Best Investment Bank awards in Spain, Mexico, Peru and Türkiye.

Five startups—Eriklabs, Text2Test, Rudiq, Freya, and Fraud.com—have been selected for the 10th cohort of the Garanti BBVA Partners Tech Program. Working in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and blockchain, they will benefit from six months of mentorship, collaboration, and growth opportunities.

Satisfaction surveys are no longer the only way BBVA gains insight into its relationship with customers. The bank is now using generative artificial intelligence to analyze hundreds of thousands of customer interactions, providing a more complete picture of the customer experience. It harnesses this technology to process selected conversations in Spain across channels such as phone calls and chats between customers and relationship managers through the bank’s app, as well as more than 220,000 monthly calls between customers and remote relationship managers in Mexico. The goal is to identify customer needs and pain points more quickly and reliably, enabling more personalized and effective service. These capabilities are deployed in compliance with applicable data protection regulations.

BBVA has provided €187 million in financing to the steel group TOSYALI to support the first phase of its solar energy plan in Türkiye. The project, to be delivered by GE Vernova and Inogen, will help advance the decarbonisation of one of the world's leading producers of green steel. Structured as an Export Finance Buyer Credit facility backed by Cesce, the transaction underscores BBVA's ability to support large-scale industrial projects that accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Digital financing is gaining ground among small businesses and the self-employed. At the end of May 2026, 58% of new lending transactions arranged with SMEs across the BBVA Group were completed through digital channels, rising to 67% in the case of the self-employed. Between January and May, the volume of financing arranged digitally came to almost €10 billion. The bank now has more than 2.8 million digital SME and self-employed customers in the countries where it operates.

BBVA has executed the largest synthetic securitisation transaction backed by a project finance portfolio in its history, referencing a €2 billion portfolio of loans.

At BBVA, the development and use of artificial intelligence are underpinned by a responsible AI framework based on eight principles that promote transparency, security, privacy and human oversight. The aim is to create sustainable value, uphold security standards, regulatory compliance and customer data protection, in order to preserve customer trust in the bank’s services in an increasingly automated environment.  These principles are implemented through technological capabilities, governance mechanisms, and training and support programs for employees.

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BBVA is providing sustainability training for 937 employees from 688 suppliers across 22 countries through the Capacity Building Program: Sustainable Suppliers. Participation linked to the bank has increased in 2026, with 58 percent growth in 2026 in enrolled individuals, a 65 percent increase in the number of suppliers and 69 percent growth in the number of countries compared with the previous year. The initiative is led by the United Nations Global Compact Spain, ICEX Spain Export and Investment and the ICO Foundation.

During the recent London Climate Action Week, several BBVA leaders cautioned how physical climate risk is no longer solely a sustainability issue but has become a key consideration in business and investment decisions. According to Antoni Ballabriga, Global Head of Sustainability Intelligence at BBVA, “the ability to adapt to climate change has become a competitive advantage for companies.”

BBVA’s fundraising campaigns in Spain alongside the Red Cross, UNHCR, and UNICEF to support Venezuela following the earthquakes have already raised more than €1 million in donations in just 48 hours. BBVA is calling on everyone who would like to support the recovery effort to join its fundraising campaigns in the countries where it operates, including Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Switzerland, and Türkiye.

Garanti BBVA has issued a €30 million green bond with a maturity of one year and two days under its international funding program to support climate change adaptation and make sustainable agriculture more resilient.

BBVA has announced a €5 million donation to support the humanitarian response in the aftermath of the earthquakes in Venezuela. The contribution will support initiatives launched by UNICEF, UNHCR and the Red Cross, and other local organizations, both to address the most urgent needs and to contribute to subsequent reconstruction efforts. In addition, the BBVA Group has launched fundraising campaigns among clients and employees to expand support for the emergency and has rolled out other initiatives to support the population during this initial phase of the emergency.

Garanti BBVA and Turkish Airlines are celebrating their 25-year alliance with the launch of the Miles&Smiles Garanti BBVA Diamond Limited Edition credit card. Only 3,879 cards will be issued, a figure obtained by adding together both companies’ founding years.

The Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) sector is undergoing a new phase of transformation driven by AI, the digitalization of the economy, and growing demand for computing power, data storage, cloud and connectivity. This cycle is reshaping investment and financing strategies amid a complex macroeconomic environment, affecting both global supply chains and companies’ access to liquidity. Ksenia Nekrasova and Manuel Franch, Global Heads of TMT at BBVA CIB, analyze the trends driving this new phase and the bank’s role in an increasingly competitive and specialized market.

Diversity is part of who we are, and inclusion is part of the culture we build every day. On International LGBTIQ+ Pride Day, BBVA reaffirms its commitment to creating environments where everyone can grow and thrive with authenticity, confidence and equal opportunities.

BBVA has placed €1.25 billion in a green senior non-preferred issuance maturing on June 30, 2031. The transaction was very well received by investors, with demand exceeding €3.2 billion, more than 2.5 times the final issue size.