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Finance

Finance

World Finance Magazine and European CEO Magazine pay tribute to the BBVA unit’s achievements in customer experience and digital transformation. Garanti has been named as “the Best Retail Bank in Turkey” by World Finance Magazine and as “the Best Retail Bank in Europe” by European CEO Magazine in recognition of the quality of customer experience it delivers, the digital transformation of its branches and innovative projects and solutions such as its instant e-commerce loan.

International investment in infrastructure projects continues to be insufficient. This is the conclusion reached at the B20 summit where global companies provided guidance to the G20. According to the task force charged with studying growth and infrastructure financing, the infrastructure investment gap needs to be resolved to exploit the sector's enormous potential and drive more inclusive development.

The European Union is already readying itself for the possible exit of the United Kingdom from the European club without an agreement between the two sides. Although no scenario has been ruled out, Miguel Jiménez, the chief economist for Europe at BBVA Research, argued in a recent article published in El País that “a no-deal exit in March, with no transitional period, is no longer inconceivable”. In his opinion, this would be the worst possible outcome of Brexit.

The European Central Bank in 2018 began the turnover process in a number of key posts on its Executive Board. The crux will be the end of Mario Draghi’s term in office in October 2019 amid doubts about whether his departure will coincide with a hike in interest rates expected between the summer and the fall of next year.

Spain has just become one of the few countries in the European Union with a concrete proposal for launching a regulatory sandbox. The goal? To create a space for experimentation, temporarily unencumbered by regulatory measures, to promote innovation in the financial sector. In doing so, Spain thus has stolen a march on other countries in this area, with a proposed law that appeals to both the traditional financial industry and new fintech startups. Álvaro Martín, Chief Economist for Digital Regulation and Trends at BBVA Research helps us understand how it will function and if it benefits the consumer.

In the presentation of its results to the media, BBVA’s CEO Carlos Torres Vila emphasized the bank’s “strong push to business digitization not only drives sales but is fundamental to cost control.” This “digital push” is driving total revenues while keeping costs down. As a whole, this allows efficiency to continue to improve. In fact, the efficiency ratio stood at 49.2 percent as of June, 82 basis points below the figure for 2017 at constant exchange rates.