A global mobile banking platform to quickly reach customers
Mexico's BBVA Bancomer is the Group's first bank to adopt the globally developed mobile banking platform. It will be gradually rolled-out across the rest of the countries where the Group operates, providing a speed-to-market advantage.
Peru and Uruguay are the next countries where BBVA will launch the mobile banking application based on this global platform. “It's about making the solutions that work well in one country immediately available to the rest of the countries,” explained BBVA Group's CEO, Carlos Torres Vila, at the inauguration of the platform in Mexico City last May 17th.
BBVA has identified more than 970 money-related micro-services/functions that are common across the countries where the Group operates. Among these, the global platform has incorporated 350 to date.
So, although each country will have its own mobile banking application, underlying it are the same processes, the same design, and the same navigation logic. In other words, it is designed and built just once, but distributed many times – with market-specific adjustments.
Ultimately, the platform improves efficiency thanks to the reusability of different components, which optimizes delivery times across the territories. It's about modular development that caters for the agile integration of specific local requirements into the global product, such as the check payment module in the U.S.
Invested only once
“What is invested in design is only invested once; what is invested in business intelligence is only invested once; what is invested in mobility – meaning in the practice of enabling people to have different functionalities – is only invested once,” explained Hugo Nájera, BBVA Bancomer's head of Business Development, during the presentation in Mexico last May. “And this gives us a very important advantage: the ability to get to market very quickly.”
Teams from different countries – Spain, Mexico, and the United States – worked together to launch the mobile platform, but all of BBVA’s operating countries will benefit because they will be able to create mobile banking applications reusing work that has already been done. This means time to market will be much reduced.
By working in teams and applying agile methodologies, the timeframes for the product development cycle were able to be cut in half. This also means that when a country wants to roll out a service that already exists in the platform, it will be able to do so instantly, which represents an advantage over the competition.