Profitability

This Wednesday, BBVA CEO Onur Genç emphasized the bank’s excellent performance in the first half of the year, and the sustainability of these metrics over time. He specifically pointed to improvement in profitability indicators, with an ROTE of 16.9 percent at the end of June 2023. “We have been delivering better than the competition - not only at the Group level, but at the country level,” he said during a conference for investors organized by Bank of America in London.

Today marks the second anniversary of death of David Bowie, a pop icon who needs no introduction. Hundreds of lines have been written about his life, career and concerts. But what many are not aware of is that Bowie was also a pioneer in the financial world: he was the first artist ever to issue a “celebrity bond.”

Positive market conditions and investor appetite have helped BBVA to get an excellent reception for its sixth issue of CoCos. The Group has issued a $1 billion bond, with the lowest coupon in dollars for an issuer from southern Europe (6.125%), and the longest maturity (perpetual, with a ‘call’ option starting in the tenth year). Registration of a prospectus with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has prompted a bigger participation from American, European and Asian investors.

BBVA Compass President and CEO Onur Genç has been on the job for just six months, but already, he sees a wealth of opportunity for BBVA in the U.S.

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.’

Alibaba’s payments arm is playing a key role in the company’s success. But Ant Financial is much more than just that: it is the biggest fintech in the world. The company recently achieved a market valuation that more than doubles Airbnb’s value and is almost  on par with Uber’s capitalization.

BBVA’s CFO in Spain, Ángel Reglero, participated in the UBS European Conference today in London, where he explained the key management priorities in this market. Numerous companies participate in the event, designed as a forum for qualified investors.

This is how Francisco González describes the current context for financial institutions in an article he wrote for the Singapore Summit. BBVA’s Executive Chairman took part in this event this weekend, as well as in the meeting of the International Advisory Panel of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Javier Malagón, CFO of BBVA Bancomer, the most profitable bank in Mexico and the leader of the country’s financial sector, presented the bank’s strategy and main financial data at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference today.

There is a sea of acronyms to measure profitability. Some are more widely known in the industry, such as ROE, ROTE or ROA. However, the more r’s they have, the more complicated things get (RORWA, RAROC, RORAC, RARORAC). But, which ratio is the most reliable to measure a bank’s profitability?  Let’s go over each one of them to understand their meaning and apply the most appropriate one in each case.

After a turbulent end of 2015 for Latin American emerging markets, fuelled by the collapse of commodity prices, the first half of 2016 has been quite different. Since January, investment funds operating in Latin America have reported solid profitability ratios, in many cases above 10%.

José Manuel González-Páramo read his admission speech at the Royal Academy for Moral and Political Sciences. The new member devoted his speech to the reinvention of banks, driven by five vectors of change that start with the letter R: Recession, Return, Regulation, Reputation, and above all, the digital Revolution. He also discussed the different scenarios for the future.

Ciudad BBVA, the BBVA Group’s new headquarters in Madrid, today hosted the General Assembly of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE in Spanish). In his presentation at the conference closure, BBVA’s Executive Chairman praised the work of Spanish businessmen and businesswomen, “Their role is very relevant and their leadership is essential to the future of Spain, even though society does not often recognize this sufficiently.”