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Finance

Finance

BBVA Frances has completed a capital increase of 75.8 million shares, including 66 million ordinary sares, and the remainder in shares offered to investment banks through a greenshoe option. At closing market prices, the transaction was valued at $400 million.  The BBVA Group affiliate will use the transaction to support the bank’s growth, taking advantage of the improved outlook for Argentina´s economy and financial system.

Ricardo Gómez Barredo was there for the birth of BBVA (through the merger of BBV and Argentaria), a Group he has been associated with for more than two decades.Now he is in charge of functions that are so critical to a bank like liaising with supervisors, working out financial information and reporting.Professionally, he describes himself as very demanding of himself. He thinks that the best part of his professional experience has always been “the people I’ve been lucky enough to work with”.

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.

The European Commission just unveiled a new directive on corporate governance, and more specifically on shareholders' rights, which will have to be transposed nationwide by June 2019. The Commission’s initiative serves a dual purpose:  It wants to promote the use of new technologies in the corporate governance of companies while increasing the commitment to transparency among institutional investors, asset managers and the companies in which they invest.

The future of mobile banking will come down to user experience, personalization and how, in the future, banks will create new sources of value for customers through digital partnerships, according to Forrester Research analyst Aurélie L’Hostis.