Productivity

It’s a constant refrain among leaders at BBVA USA that theirs is an organization of people helping people, and that means addressing both sides of the people equation - customers and employees. Not surprising, then, that the bank’s five-year strategic plan contains pillars that focus on both.

Head of Commercial and Wealth Rafael Bustillo has been a leading force in the evolution of banking in his 30-plus years at BBVA. But, it’s the future that he’s most excited about. In the following interview, Bustillo gave his thoughts about the challenges and opportunities facing the bank’s Commercial & Wealth team in the coming year.

Economic activity in Latin America has been invigorated in recent months, in line with the recovery of confidence among families and businesses and a more favorable external context. In its Latin America Economic Outlook for first quarter 2018, BBVA Research forecasts that the region’s growth will increase from 1.1% in 2017 to 1.7% in 2018 and 2.5% in 2019.

If you ask scientists in the field of artificial intelligence when they expect fiction to become reality and robots’ intelligence to exceed that of humans, they would likely say it’s right around the corner, sometime between 2030 and 2050.

BBVA Research places Spain at 30th in the digitization ranking of 100 countries, an intermediate position behind nations such as Germany or France, but ahead of other southern European countries like Italy or Portugal. However, Spain “is much better prepared for the Fourth Industrial Revolution than it was for the previous ones,” says Rafael Doménech, head of Macroeconomic Analysis at BBVA Research.

BBVA Compass further adopts a new internal workstyle aimed at providing the bank with the organizational structure and necessary competitive capabilities to collectively focus and quickly respond to the digital transformation within the U.S. banking arena.

Regulators, service providers, consulting firms and banks leading the transformation process participated in a workshop organized by the European Digital Forum to analyze how to increase the competitiveness of the European economy and drive innovation through ‘cloud computing.’

After a years of steep deterioration, Uruguay has managed to partially recover some of the ground lost after a historic fall in productivity.  Despite this, a person working in Uruguay today reaches an average productivity slightly above 40% of the level they would achieve working in an advanced economy.  How is this possible?  What can be done?  This paper sets out a potential explanation and suggests a line of action for further progress.

The development of digital solutions for credit products, investments, opening accounts, ATMs, mobile apps, are just part of the daily routine for BBVA Bancomer’s dedicated and idiosyncratic teams.

Productivity means doing things better, doing more with the same resources, combining them more efficiently to produce better results. And greater productivity – as well as more investment and jobs - is exactly what we need in Chile to return to the growth rates that improved millions of people’s quality of life over the past 25 years.

Over the past three decades, an economic model has gained a foothold in Chile that has proven successful at a number of levels, such as enabling high GDP growth rates (yearly average of 5.3%), helping the country to significantly bridge the income gap with developed countries such as the U.S. and Germany and improving  in the living standards of the population.

The trade finance or foreign trade activity accompanies people and businesses in their activity importing/exporting goods and services, mitigating the risks that exist in international commercial relations and simplifying the settlement of operations. The same commercial transaction can require different solutions over time, depending on the moment at which it takes place and the role of the parties involved (importer or exporter).

Economist, professor, advisory and director of several organizations related to economic research… Rafael Domenech’s professional life has always been connected to economics, and in parallel, to teaching. Chief Economist of Developed Economies at BBVA Research since 2009, Domenech is also a Professor of Economic Analysis at the University of Valencia. This fact permeates all of his explanations, which those who attend his presentations describe as “very educational”.

Born in Sao Paulo while his parents spent a five year period there, he is Brazilian by birth but Valencian by adoption and believes that there is a great need for education in economics. He is the author of numerous articles in prestigious international and national magazine on human capital, growth, economic cycles and monetary and fiscal policies, and recently published a book, 'En busca de la prosperidad (The Search for Prosperity)' that includes measures the Spanish economy should take to increase employment, equity and well-being.

He holds a Master of Science degree from the London School of Economics and a PhD in Economics. He has also worked as a collaborating researcher for the OECD, the European Commission, the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Rafael del Pino Foundation, among others.  The author of numerous publications, together with other BBVA Research team members he has prepared an Economic Observatory with proposals to reform the labor market in Spain, which was published today (in Spanish).

Brazil, the biggest economy in Latin America, is facing a political and economic crisis that is keeping the country in recession and will extend over 2016. We talked about the economic situation and outlook for the country with Enestor Dos Santos, economist at BBVA Research for Brazil, who explained that if the situation is to be normalized it is important to resolve the political situation first. This will reduce uncertainty, generate more stability and enable the right decisions to be made to allow the country to grow again. However, he clarifies that recovery from this economic recession will start gradually in 2017 and gather strength after the 2018 elections.

El Niño is the warm phase of the ENSO (“El Niño Southern Oscillation”), a meteorological event defined by prolonged warming in the Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures. This year’s event is currently affecting the countries of the Latin American Pacific basin, and could be the worst since 1950, due to the impact of the climate change.

Solutions to boost their growth and innovation; data management solutions; solutions to improve efficiency and productivity. These are the three main areas that banks and insurance companies are focusing on to develop products and services related to Big Data.