International trade plays an essential role in our everyday lives: in both developed countries and emerging markets, a large part of the products and services result — either partially or totally — from commercial dealings with other countries.

The previous year has come to a close, and with it comes reflection on what 2018 brought. However, a look forward to 2019 can also have its advantages.

Several initiatives were launched in 2018 that will lead to new legislative developments - primarily related to the implementation of the Basel framework and the completion of two major European projects: the Banking Union and  the Capital Markets Union. These are some of the regulatory trends for 2019 that BBVA Research principal economist María Victoria Santillana explores in an op-ed published in the newspaper, Expansión.

Global banks face six major challenges when tackling their anti-money laundering efforts: their international footprint, supervisory pressure, maximizing efficiency and effectiveness, leveraging technology, recognizing specialized talent and raising awareness among society about how important it is that everybody collaborates with financial institutions.

Francisco González purchased one million shares of the bank after his departure as the Group's executive chairman.

Under a borrowing program framework, Garanti Bank has received in excess of $1.3 billion in financing from international markets. The funding, as stipulated by the program framework, will be provided under two separate financing contracts and over four different tranches with 367-day, 2-year-and-one-day, and 7-year term loans.

BBVA Compass has appointed banking industry veteran Heather Sanchez as its new Ontario City President, where she will lead the market’s commercial banking operations and manage the local advisory board.

Francisco González is a self-made man obsessed with two things: technology and ethics/values. His greatest passion is playing golf. He likes to speak frankly, with “frankly” being one of the words he uses most commonly because he “greatly appreciates the courage of those who speak their mind.” He’s proud of the independence that has defined his managerial style – “you can either keep your distance, or you can steer your company into a series of commitments that have nothing to do with the interests of the shareholders,  the customers, the employees or the company at large", he has said on occasion.

It is difficult to summarize everything that has happened at BBVA since 1996 when Francisco González took the reigns as chairman of Argentaria, which would be come BBVA almost four years later, after the merger with BBV. For more than 20 years the Group has stood out thanks to the chairman’s unique approach, an unwavering commitment to values and responsible banking, and the giant leap he initiated to transform the Group into a leading 21st century bank. Ultimately, his tenure as chairman has been marked by values, people, and innovation.

BBVA's international expansion began in the mid 1990s. Today, with operations in more than 30 countries, the bank’s geographic diversification represents one of the great accomplishments of Francisco González's twenty-year tenure as executive chairman, and is a key factor in the Group's repeated positive results.