It’s a triple play for BBVA Compass’ mobile app, which was honored with the 2016 Javelin Mobile Banking Leader award for Functionality for the third consecutive year in Javelin Strategy & Research’s Mobile Banking Financial Institution Scorecard. BBVA Compass was also named a Leader in Most Comprehensive Alerts category for the first time.

In 2015, investment in fintech companies, backed by venture capital firms, increased by 106% to 13.6 billion dollars. Payment services and loans dominate the fintech market.

Commercial drones are taking over the market. The first barrier –price– is now disappearing, thanks to interest from companies and consumers. The figures bear out the attraction of unmanned aircraft: deliveries of drones to consumers all over the world is expected to exceed 7.3 million in 2016 and to hit 29 million by 2021.

Fintech, blockchain technology – together with bitcoin – and crowdlending are tools that help SMEs, which play an increasingly prominent role in the labor market.

When we talk about the digital banking and fintech revolution, the first thing that springs to mind are the thousands upon thousands of apps developed for retail banking customers: Means of payments, funding, microcredit… However, digitization in wholesale banking is also becoming a reality, especially on the side of the development of digital channels aiming to offer more products and functionalities to business, corporate and institutional customers.

Now there are more ways for BBVA Compass customers to make purchases, thanks to the integration of Android Pay and Samsung Pay for BBVA Compass cardholders.

Mobile banking apps tend to top the rankings on the two largest application store platforms. However, there is always the occasional surprise.

The CEO of TransferWise, the company behind the creators of Skype and PayPal which has transformed the scenario for transnational money transfers, has announced –for the thousandth time– the death of the most high-profile cryptocurrency.

BBVA is betting big on open platforms and BBVA API Market is, as of today, the clearest example of this strategy. The portal – through which developers can access BBVA’s APIs - is still in a pilot stage and, for the time being, is available by invitation-only for users from Spain and the United States.  The purpose is to offer other companies a way to leverage BBVA’s capabilities to build their services.

“In 2008 an anonymous person invented something revolutionary. He or she managed to get two or more people who didn't know each other and who didn't necessarily trust each other to reach a consensus on the status of a database”. This is the way Luis Cuende, CTO of Stampery defines blockchain technology.