Financial economics

The BBVA Investor Day allowed investors to learn firsthand the details and objectives of the bank’s strategy in Turkey. Garanti BBVA CEO Recep Bastug provided information on the country's economic outlook and potential, including Garanti BBVA's performance, competitive advantages and strategies.

Consensus Economics, one of the world´s most recognized analysis firms, has awarded Garanti BBVA the Forecast Accuracy Award for work by its economic analysis department.

In an interview with the Financial Times, BBVA Group executive chairman Carlos Torres Vila stressed that: “If we want to avoid a deeper economic impact that may be irreversible, measures should be compatible with controlling infection rates, [keeping] contagion at bay [while] reactivating the economy. The best way to reconstruct is not to destroy.”

Nonfinancial debt, specifically the relatively high ratio of business leverage, is drawing attention from economists working in policy and finance spheres, according to a recent publication by BBVA Senior Economist Filip Blazheski.

Behavioral economics, the study of human behavior regarding decision making, is the latest field of study BBVA is using to improve customer experience and simplify banking for its customers.

Decision making can be psychologically, emotionally and sometimes even physically exhausting. That’s why all of us have created mental shortcuts, biases, and preferences that help us make decisions. While this can save us time and fatigue, it doesn’t always help us make the best decisions.

We humans have a history of finding faster, simpler, more efficient ways of doing things. Over time, we’ve sped up every process from building a car to ordering a pizza online.  So it’s really no surprise that we’ve also established thought processes to help us wade through all the information we encounter and make decisions more quickly.

Every day, we ask our brains to make decisions, about what to wear, what to order, which shoes to buy, which route to take to work. Some of these decisions are made so automatically, we aren’t even aware we’re making them. Our brains do that on purpose -- relying on shortcuts and preferences -- to avoid the continuous ongoing stress of making the same decisions again and again.

The ripple effects from the Office of the Comptroller of Currency announcing it would accept applications for banking licenses from fintechs are still being felt.

EBITDA, or Earnings Before Interests, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization, is an accounting measure that shows the gross income before financial expenses are deducted, and which allows financial analysts to assess the behavior and financial standing of companies.

Many people around the world choose to place part of their savings in investments outside their home country, in order to diversify their holdings. That’s why they put part of their capital in international financial centers. Switzerland is one of them.

BBVA Francés is fully immersed in its transformation to digital banking. This year, the bank moved into a modern tower in Buenos Aires, where it is growing as a company, both culturally and in terms of teamwork. Customer experience is setting the pace of change towards a mobile future. For CEO Martín Zarich, the customer experience sets the pace towards a changeable future. In his opinion: "the moment is now, not in five years' time".

BBVA backed Atom Bank has been named as one of the world’s top ten fintech firms for the third time in a row.

Money 20/20 Las Vegas is without doubt one of the showcase events for technology and financial services in the world. Every years thousands of people involved in the industry, from big banks like BBVA to technology firms like Google and most importantly innovators and start-ups, gather to discuss the future of the industry.

BBVA and BBVA Bancomer are piloting an FX matching application developed by Calypso Technology, a leading provider of cloud based cross asset trading software solutions for the financial markets, and enterprise software firm R3. The application, which runs on R3’s Corda platform and is facilitated by Calypso’s cloud services, has already been used by the two banks to match a test FX trade.

Non-performing assets, monetary policy and digitization are the three most pressing challenges that EU banks are facing, according to José Manuel González-Páramo. BBVA’s Executive Board Director participated in the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Institute of International Finance (IIF) that took place in Washington D.C. last week, which he attended together with a large delegation of BBVA executives.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) is an international body that oversees the proper running of the financial system by promoting oversight and regulatory policies.

The EBA recently completed its latest monitoring exercise to assess EU Banks’ capital, leverage, and liquidity ratios assuming full implementation of the CRD IV-CRR/Basel III framework.  Overall, the results show that, between June and December of 2016, there was an improvement in both CET1 capital and liquidity ratios.

For months, European authorities have been mulling over a crucial issue for the health of the financial sector: reducing the stock of non-performing assets that have been piling up in banks’ balance sheets during the years of financial crisis.  The creation of a bad European bank is one of the alternatives that are being considered to solve the problem.

BBVA has participated in a public hearing in the European Parliament, organized by the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI). The aim of the hearing was to allow stakeholders to share their insights into the directive’s insolvency proposal with the MEPs. BBVA was the only representative of the financial sector, a fact that attests to the bank’s relevance for EU institutions on these matters.

In 2007, one of the biggest financial crisis in modern history started, one that has brought drastic changes to the world’s economy.

The bursting of the financial bubble caused by subprime mortgages triggered a deep economic recession, especially in countries such as Spain.  The crisis also resulted in record-high unemployment rates that still affect large segments of the population.  This is how the crisis that started a decade ago has evolved and affected people and the economy.

The financial crisis has had dire consequences on the banking sector’s landscape.  Of the 8,600 entities that operated in Europe in 2008, only 6,500 remained at the beginning of this year.  In addition, these banks now have to operate under a regulatory framework that’s much stricter than the one that existed before the crisis, in a market that has also changed.  All this is leading European banks to shift their business models.  Do they now have a more retail-minded profile than before the crisis?  That’s what it looks like.

Unlike other sectors in Turkey, banks are standing out because of the excellent progress of their financial indicators in the first part of 2017. One of the reasons is the measures taken by the Turkish Government to stimulate growth. However, there are also other reasons that are making Turkish banks the ones preferred by many investors. Garanti, owned 49.85% by BBVA, has particularly shined bright.

The agility, price and quality of digital services benefit customers, according to BBVA Executive Director José Manuel González-Páramo. At the Young Ibero-American Leaders Convention, organized by the Carolina Foundation in Madrid, he explained the benefits of the digital age for customers, especially in Latin America where a large portion of the population does not have access to financial services. “Customers are the main beneficiaries of the technological change we are experiencing. The opportunities enabled by digitization give more power to them,” he indicated.

At a debate about the opportunities offered by digitization, he noted that “the immense agility” with which customers can be reached, “the prices that are so low” compared to the past and “the quality of services” benefit customers.

This past 23 June, the Cabinet approved a new category of debt for issuance by all financial entities: senior non-preferred debt, which has the ability to absorb losses.

BBVA Executive Director José Manuel González-Páramo today closed the EduFin Summit in Mexico, which the bank organized. In his opinion, “we are at a key moment in the development of financial education”, due to the socioeconomic changes taking place, the growing complexity of financial products and the digital transformation of banking.

Education and financial inclusion are the principal themes of EduFin Summit 2017, the first global encounter organized by the BBVA Center for Financial Education and Capability. For two days, the world´s leading experts will meet in Mexico City to discuss how to help people improve their lives and access new opportunities, by means of financial knowledge.

Within the varied and, for many people, unfamiliar jargon of the stock trading world are the terms “squeeze-out’ and ‘sell-out.’ Both refer to mechanisms for the forced purchase and sale of shares, and are closely linked to the context of a takeover bid.

There has been an increasing focus on sustainable finance and on the impact of the climate change for the financial stability since 2015 year. Having said that, sustainable finance and the analysis of the consequences of climate change for the financial system are still in a very nascent stage and there is still a lot of work to be done. Two leading projects that are a step in the right direction are those of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Recommendations -at global level- and the creation of a European Expert Group on sustainable finance -in the EU.