Mahmut Akten points to 2025 as a year of strong performance and value creation for Garanti BBVA, setting the foundation for a clear and forward-looking strategic agenda for 2026. Following a period of high inflation in Türkiye, the economy has entered a normalization phase. Akten says Turkish banks should prepare for another challenging year, as regulatory credit limits are expected to remain largely in place to support disinflation efforts. While some adjustments may be considered, Akten underlines that maintaining financial discipline will be critical to achieving price stability and sustained growth.

Garanti BBVA has signed one of the largest sustainability-linked loan transactions ever extended to a corporate borrower in Türkiye by acting as Sustainability Coordinator throughout the loan tenor of the €1.7 billion financing provided for the Antalya–Alanya Highway Project.

BBVA is to launch on December 22 an extraordinary share buyback program for a maximum amount of €3.96 billion, after obtaining all required authorizations. This is the largest buyback ever carried out by the Group. The program is part of the €36 billion that BBVA expects to make available for distribution to shareholders between 2025 and 2028¹, through both ordinary remuneration and additional distributions, such as this program.

Global Finance has named BBVA Best Bank for Embedded Finance in the second round of the World’s Best Digital Banks 2025 – Corporate Winners awards. The award recognizes BBVA’s leadership in developing integrated financial solutions that deliver simple, immediate, and relevant banking services directly within the environments where individuals and businesses need them.

BBVA has led a $30 million funding round in Olea, the digital platform specialized in supply chain finance solutions. With this transaction, BBVA strengthens its role as a strategic partner and key driver of Olea’s growth. The round also included participation from XDC Network, theDock, and SC Ventures, the innovation arm of Standard Chartered.

At the 'Beyond Hype: crypto meets banking at BBVA' event, BBVA Spark brought together leaders from the crypto industry such as Andrei Manuel, founder of Bit2Me, Catriona Wingate, head of banking at BVNK in Europe, Asia and the Pacific, and Kaushik Sthankiya, head of banking at Kraken. The experts analysed the factors driving the growth of crypto companies, the opportunities and challenges they face when coexisting with traditional financial infrastructures, and how collaboration with banks can make a difference.

BBVA has rolled out a roadmap, known as ‘The Eight,’ aimed at ramping up the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to evolve the way the bank interacts with customers, manages risk, automates processes, and strengthens its technological capabilities. This decisive step forward in its transformation will enable the bank to radically improve its range of products and services through innovation and to structurally enhance its ways of working to boost value creation.

Image: Antonio Bravo, Head of Data at BBVA

BBVA and OpenAI have entered into a strategic alliance aimed at redefining the future of financial services through the use of artificial intelligence. The agreement, announced by Carlos Torres Vila, Chair of BBVA, and Sam Altman, CEO and Co-founder of OpenAI, marks a unique and unprecedented level of collaboration in the financial industry to build a radically customer-centric proposition and to drive a more productive and efficient operating model.

In this episode, we speak with M&G Investments, a global asset manager at the forefront of responsible and sustainable investment.

The Business Network for LGBTI Diversity and Inclusion (REDI) named BBVA as one of the leading organizations in the ‘Top Líderes LGBTI+ 2025,’ officially held on December 10 to coincide with International Human Rights Day. This recognition underscores the bank’s contributions to creating inclusive, safe and respectful work environments, as well as its commitment to equal opportunities.

The two companies have been authorized by the Central Bank of Argentina and the Secretariat of Industry and Commerce to take joint control of FCA Compañía Financiera, a firm until now wholly owned by Stellantis and specializing in auto financing for the brands owned by the auto giant.

Garanti BBVA has finalized a syndicated loan as part of its international funding program. The transaction focuses on sustainability and includes one-year (€61 million / $97.75 million), two-year (€28 million plus $157 million) and three-year $75 million) tranches. It attracted strong interest from global investors, with 49 financial institutions from 22 countries participating.

The green economy was worth more than five trillion dollars in 2024, according to the report Already a Multi-Trillion-Dollar Market: CEO Guide to Growth in the Green Economy by the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders. It is the second fastest-growing sector, with only technology ahead, and this despite the complex geopolitical environment. Globally, China leads this green market.

BBVA Corporate & Investment Banking (CIB) leads the project finance market in Chile, with seven transactions and an estimated volume of approximately USD 500 million in 2025, according to LSEG Syndicated Loans data as of the end of September 2025. These deals, focused on energy transition and sustainable infrastructure projects, reflect the bank’s firm commitment to sustainable finance and the country’s development. Felipe Serani, Head of BBVA CIB in Chile, underscores that this progress signals “a paradigm shift in financing: from profitability to sustainability as a structural pillar of growth.”

The Banker, a magazine of the Financial Times Group, has once again recognized the BBVA Group as ‘The Best Bank in Latin America.’ On this occasion, the British publication, which presented the bank with the same award in 2023, emphasized its leadership in innovation and pioneering approach to sustainability. BBVA also received the award for the Best Bank in Argentina and Peru.

In the image: Pablo Barriuso and Anselmo Andrade, from BBVA UK, receive the award for Best Bank in Latin America.

BBVA’s digital banks in Europe are exploring what could become the first banking app in the world natively integrated within ChatGPT, marking a bold step forward in how financial services integrate with conversational AI. This demonstration shows how people will be able to discover BBVA’s products and services in Italy and Germany through a dedicated BBVA app built directly into OpenAI’s conversational assistant.

The latest climate change summit recently held in Belém left a bittersweet taste in the mouth: while the final agreements were less ambitious than hoped, meaningful progress was made toward financing for climate mitigation and adaptation, as well as for a just transition.

The COP30 Climate Summit, held in Belém, culminated with a dual but pretty clear-cut message: climate multilateralism is still very much alive and capable of delivering agreements, although the pace of progress is still far too slow if we are to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Born in 1961 in Alabama (United States), Carl Lewis is considered one of the greatest athletes of all time. The “Son of the Wind” excelled in sprinting and long jump events, combining flawless technique with extraordinary mental strength.

This November marks one year since the launch of European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen’s sustainability simplification package, ‘Omnibus.’ The goal is clear: to boost the competitiveness of European companies, reducing the bureaucratic burden of the sustainable finance framework.

BBVA’s Global Head of Finance, Luisa Gómez Bravo, took part this past Thursday in JP Morgan’s annual investor conference. During her presentation, she explained that BBVA’s strategy is predicated on the bank being one the leading players in each market in order to secure a competitive edge. She pointed to the profitability and value creation that the bank is achieving in 2025, which are paving the way toward its financial targets. BBVA’s unrivalled profitability will ultimately lead to strong capital generation that can be paid out to shareholders (up to €36 billion through 2028¹).

Garanti BBVA once again demonstrated its leadership at one of the most prestigious events in finance and technology, the Sardis Awards. The bank was honored in seven categories, winning four gold and three silver awards in categories related to creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, technology, social impact and its customer-oriented approach.

The third meeting of the Spain–China Business Advisory Council (BAC), held in Beijing as part of the State visit of Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain to China, once again highlighted the importance of economic dialogue between the two countries. BBVA Corporate & Investment Banking (CIB) played an active role in the event, reaffirming its commitment to supporting enterprises in their international expansion and its role as a strategic financial partner in strengthening ties between Asia, Europe and Latin America.

BBVA in Italy reaffirms its commitment to meeting the real needs of its customers with two initiatives designed to make one of the year’s busiest spending periods even more rewarding: Great Cashback, which gives back up to €50 on purchases, and the current account offering 3% gross interest, allowing customers to grow their savings without giving up flexibility. A double benefit that enables people to spend smartly and grow their liquidity as Black Friday and the holiday season approach.

Spain’s development finance institution, the Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO), and Garanti BBVA, BBVA’s Turkish franchise, signed the first financing agreement aimed at boosting the activity of companies with Spanish interests in Türkiye for up to $100 million.

BBVA Research reinforces its commitment to innovation applied to economic analysis with the addition of a new section on Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to its website.