BBVA delivers impressive digital growth
BBVA is continuing to deliver impressive results in its digital transformation, the Group has revealed in its full year 2017 results.
As well as delivering a strong financial performance - comparable profit grew by 20% while revenues grew 4.1% and expenses declined 2.3% - what also stands out is the progress the bank has made in its digital transformation strategy.
For example, looking at the metric of digital customers - so customers who now interact with the bank via digital channels - that number has grown by close to 6 million in the past 12 months alone. That gives a year on year growth rate of 25% with more than 22.6 million customers now choosing digital as a key interaction channel.
For mobile customers, the growth rate has been even higher at 44%, with 17.7 million customers now accessing BBVA’s financial services via their mobile device.
More impressively, BBVA has now reached the digital tipping point, where more than 50% of its customer base accesses banking services through digital channels, in six of its 11 core operating countries - Spain, USA, Turkey, Argentina, Chile and Venezuela.
Across the group, it means the penetration rate for digital customers is now 42% and rising quickly - up from 36% the year before. It is not just the penetration rates that have improved, as BBVA also announced that one in every three sales the Group now are performed on digital channels - up from one in ten just two years ago.
Commenting on the uptick in digital performance, BBVA Group Executive Chairman, Francisco Gonzalez, said: “Growth will be exponential and will continue in 2018.”
The impact for customers, around which the transformation has been centered, has also been extremely positive, with BBVA securing the number one Net Promoter Score in eight of its markets - Spain, Turkey, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, Paraguay and Peru. Another element the bank highlighted during its results last Thursday, February 1st, was the digitally focused products and services it is rolling out.
Digital products and services
CEO Carlos Torres Vila highlighted three in particular that added value for customers by giving them insight into their financial lives: Bconomy, Baby Planner and BBVA Bancomer Plan.
Bconomy, for example, allows customers to check their financial health, optimize expenses, set goals and save for them, check the details of their income and see pending movements on their accounts so they can put money aside for a bill in virtual pockets.
This, the CEO said, were real examples of AI driven data analytics improving people’s financial decision making. Commenting further, Carlos Torres Vila, said: “The transformation is focused on the customer and as soon as the customer becomes digital, the satisfaction level increases, the engagement with the bank grows and it leads to more revenue.”
Meanwhile Derek White, Global Head of Customer and Client solutions, added: “The digital transformation we are doing at the bank is all about giving customers, clients and indeed colleagues an amazing banking experience.”
White added that for BBVA it is about rooting this digital push, this focus on customers, at the heart of everything the bank does - while not forgetting that different people enjoy different ways of interacting with their banks including of course the excellence that BBVA’s branch colleagues deliver.
He said: “What’s really exciting though are the possibilities the future will hold, as we start to roll out global products that incorporate the best learnings we get from across the countries in which we operate. “More importantly, how we accelerate the ways in which we help customers and clients get better value, better insight, better experience from their data as well as their money.”