BBVA’s Turkish unit has renewed its syndicated loan agreement obtained from international markets within the scope of its foreign borrowing program and in accordance with social sustainability criteria.

Garanti BBVA CEO Recep Baştuğ has ranked fourth in this year’s Top 50 Sustainability Leaders list, published by the Turkish edition of business publication Fast Company. Bastug was singled out among nearly 150 leaders of companies, banks and startups, following a thorough selection process by a jury of 34 business personalities and experts from around the world.

BBVA has trained 102,000 employees in sustainability between 2021 and 2022. In 2023, in addition to continuing to train new hires, the bank is focusing on the specialization of 15,000 professionals in sustainability, developing training programs adapted to their needs.

Spain is a key market to promote sustainability at BBVA. In the first quarter of 2023, the bank channeled €7.81 billion euros in sustainable business in this market - up 40 percent from the same period last year and more than 50 percent of the total amount (approximately €14 billion) mobilized by the BBVA Group. “Over half of our sustainable business was channeled in Spain in the first quarter of the year, a new record,” the BBVA CEO said this Wednesday at the 18th Meeting of the Banking Sector organized by IESE.

Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are everyday topics that have emerged as a new form of global economy. Thus, BBVA in Switzerland is launching Blockchain to go, a series of educational pills to provide people and companies with the necessary knowledge to enter this new world with confidence and security.

Garanti BBVA Mobile, Türkiye's most widely used banking application, maintains its leadership among private banks for the services it provides to individual customers and corporate clients.

BBVA in Colombia and Bancamía, an entity of the BBVA Microfinance Foundation, have announced that the Transforming Realities Scholarship will widen its scope and, starting this year, will support 100 vulnerable young people in the country so that they can pursue university studies. This initiative benefits the children of Bancamía's micro-business customers throughout the country. In its three previous editions, it has benefited 21 young people from different departments of Colombia.

Spanish households with higher consumption emit more CO2 than those with lower expenditure, although this difference is accentuated by transport use patterns, while emissions from food and energy are less unevenly distributed. By age, adults aged between 35 and 40 emit 6.9 tons of CO2 per year on average, 10% more than the average Spanish adult, according to the report ‘The Carbon Footprint of Spanish Households’ by BBVA Research.

The European Investment Fund (EIF) and BBVA are set to make it easier for startups with innovative and sustainable value propositions to get access to financing. The two institutions have concluded an agreement under the InvestEU guarantee programme whereby the EIF will grant a €200 million guarantee to enable BBVA Spark (BBVA’s specialised startup initiative) to strengthen its support for startups, helping them with their expansion plans.

Garanti BBVA, as main sponsor of the Turkish division of CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project), the world's largest environmental reporting platform run in Türkiye by the Sabancı University Corporate Governance Forum, welcomed the results announced at the 13th Climate Change Conference and Award Ceremony of CDP Turkish chapter. Garanti BBVA Sustainability Manager Seray İmer received the award on behalf of the bank, which is once again on the A List at the global level according to the CDP 2022 results.

BBVA today placed a 3-year €1 billion issue, with a redemption option in the second year. This is the first senior preferred debt issue of BBVA in 2023.

BBVA has channeled 150 billion euros in sustainable business from 2018 to March 2023, half of the €300 billion target set for the 2018-2025 period. Nearly 14 billion euros was mobilized in the year's first quarter, an increase of almost 20 percent compared to the same period in 2022. “Quarter after quarter we are making good progress towards achieving our sustainable business goal for 2025,” said Javier Rodríguez Soler, BBVA’s Global Head of Sustainability, commenting on these results.

Türkiye’s Garanti Bank earned a net income of TL 15.5 billion in the first quarter of the year. Total assets stood at TL 1.5 trillion and the bank contributed TL 1.1 trillion to the economy through lending activity. Customer deposits reached TL 1.0 trillion (+14 percent this quarter) and remain the primary source of funding, with 70 percent of assets funded by deposits. Garanti Bank continues to have a strong capital position, with a ratio of 15.9 percent¹. Its ROAE was 38.2 percent in the first three months of the year, and ROAA stood at 4.5 percent².

BBVA has successfully completed the share buyback program announced on March 20, 2023, for a total of €422 million. This program is part of the distributions to shareholders for the year 2022. In total, BBVA devoted €3.02 billion to its shareholders, including a cash dividend of €0.43 (gross) per share and this share buyback plan.

The Markets in Cryptoassets (MiCA) Regulation is the EU regulation governing issuance and provision of services related to cryptoassets and stablecoins. Adopted on April 20, 2023, by the European Parliament, MiCA is the first and only legislation of its kind in the world and leads the way for other jurisdictions. MiCA will enter into force at some point between mid-2024 and early 2025.

With the aim of incentivizing the financial inclusion of senior citizens and creating a personalized user experience, BBVA Mexico is joining the so-called Comisión Nacional para la Protección y Defensa de los Usuarios de Servicios Financieros (National Commission for the Protection and Defense of Financial Services Users, or CONDUSEF) to adjust its policies, procedures, products and services so that customers can have better interactions with the bank and better management of their finances.

The President of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, and the country manager of BBVA Uruguay, Alberto Charro, gave the opening presentations at the BBVA Sustainability Forum this Tuesday in Montevideo. A meeting where government officials, experts and the business community analyzed various initiatives to support the fight against climate change. BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila recorded a video message in which he stressed the need for all countries to join the race to decarbonization in Latin America, and emphasized the progress in Uruguay in its transition toward a more sustainable economy.

In line with its Net Zero Banking Alliance commitments, Garanti BBVA announced its interim decarbonization targets for 2030. As the first bank in Türkiye to announce that it will no longer fund coal-related projects, Garanti BBVA joined the UN-convened Net Zero Banking Alliance in 2021.

BBVA has published its clients’ progress toward decarbonization in the initial version of its climate transition plan. The bank is one of the first in the world to apply the recommendations by the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) to define a transition plan. Emissions declined in all sectors with published decarbonization indicators. BBVA’s goal is to finance this emission reduction by its clients.

BBVA earmarked €131 million for social programs and investment in the community in 2022, almost 19% more than the previous year's €106.3 million. The contribution reached 77.8 million people overall, 43% more than in the previous year.

In the last decade, the average social well-being in the countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) would have declined approximately two percent if the damage caused by CO2 emissions had been internalized, thus avoiding the worst future scenarios of global warming, according to BBVA Research.

BBVA will allocate more than €3 billion of 2022 earnings (47% of reported net attributable profit) to shareholder distribution in the form of dividends and a new share buyback program. The bank will pay a final dividend of 31 euro cents per share on April 5.

To promote sustainable growth in the country, BBVA Mexico, González Calvillo (GC), PwC Mexico and the UN Environment Program held the first edition of the ESG Summit Mexico, in which -with the participation of experts and guests from organizations such as S&P, BlackRock and the Mexican Sustainable Finance Council-, the main aspects that a company must know to include environmental, social and corporate governance criteria into its business model were addressed.

The U.S. based consulting firm, Gallup, has selected BBVA as one of the most exceptional companies to work for in the world. The Gallup award recognizes organizations that are committed to the corporate culture and talent development of their workforces.

On this portal, import export companies can access the wide range of solutions that BBVA offers them, such as the international commerce sections from the different local BBVA websites around the world, which help them to streamline these operations. Global Trade Finance also gives the companies access to specialized information that supports them in their international transactions, such as customs paperwork or tenders, with updated data from more than 170 countries.

During his presentation at the Wake Up, Spain!, event, BBVA Chair, Carlos Torres Vila, stated that the European banking sector, and more specifically Spanish banks, are facing the current situation of uncertainty from a position of unquestionable financial strength, profitability and a very solid capital and liquidity position. He added that BBVA is facing this moment with confidence, and from a strong position due to the very characteristics of its diversified, profitable business model and its cautious risk management.

BBVA is firmly committed to working towards building a greener and more inclusive society. To this end, for the third consecutive year and on the occasion of the Annual General Meeting (AGM), the bank will make a donation of 300,000 euros to social organizations working in four areas related to the environment and inclusive growth. Fundación Grandes Amigos en Acción, CESAL, Fundación Plan Internacional and Fundación Ecomar were the winning organisations in 2022.

BBVA is the only Spanish financial institution that is a member of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Finance Industry Advisory Board, which held its first meeting in Paris. This initiative aims to be an institutional channel between the agency, the finance community and energy policy makers in order to promote dialogue on the issues that affect energy investments, in particular those related to the transition toward clean energy.

Garanti BBVA presented its sponsored platform ‘Women of Commerce’ as an example of good practice at the 67th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women held at the UN Headquarters in New York from March 6 to 17, 2023.

On Monday, March 20th, BBVA will start to execute its €422 million share buyback program after receiving the authorization of the European Central Bank.

BBVA has promoted sustainability training to 252 of its SME suppliers. These are small and medium-sized companies that have contracts with BBVA in the countries where the group is present and will receive this training as part of the United Nations Compact's Sustainable Suppliers training program.

The BBVA Annual Shareholder meeting will be held in Bilbao next Friday, March 13. The shareholder meeting (also known as the Annual General Meeting or AGM) is one of a company’s primary corporate governance vehicles. During the meeting, the company’s owners (the shareholders) ratify decisions on topics determined by law and by the corporate bylaws. The AGM includes particular features that are established by corporate law. BBVA’s AGM will be held on March 17th in Bilbao.

In 2021, seven banks, with BBVA as the only Spanish bank, participated in the launch of Swift Go. There are currently over 600 banks in 120 countries that offer this solution for low-value payments, streamlining the collection of payment for services to cross-border clients for SMEs, and making it easier for individuals to buy online in other countries. 85 percent of the payments made on this service are completed in three minutes or less.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Humanities and Social Sciences has been presented to Steven Pinker (Harvard University) and Peter Singer (Princeton University) for bringing vital questions to the mainstream of public debate: the role of rationality, scientific knowledge, and humanistic values, and the moral status of animals. Their work has had a significant influence in shaping the cultural and legal framework of today.

BBVA has announced the roll-out of its BBVA Spark business unit in Colombia. The new unit will offer an end-to-end financial services proposition aimed at entrepreneurs and tech companies at different stages of development. This includes a full range of banking products and services, specialized support and access to the tech industry ecosystem.