Virtual Reality has been stealing the show until now, but Augmented Reality is on the brink of becoming a huge business. Success stories such as Pokemon Go and Snapchat have shown the technology’s potential, causing Facebook to spring into action.

The earth, capital and technology have been the strategic factors in the industrial revolutions that have taken place from the Neolithic period to the 20th Century. However, in the fourth industrial revolution, which is now underway, individual talent will be the key to success.

Volume, velocity, variety, veracity and value are the five keys to making big data a huge business.

The digital revolution has changed the rules, personal relations, business, communication and the way everyone uses their time. The impact of technology is always associated with achieving greater freedom, but it has also pushed us to levels of distraction and dependence that have changed how engage with the world.

The impact is profound, but hard to measure accurately. Sociologist and economist Manuel Castells believes that people, companies and institutions feel how profound this technological change is, “but when closely examined through rigorous empirical research, the speed and scope of the transformation turns out to not be exact.”

Technology is redefining how we bank – from mobile apps to online account management – we increasingly use digital means to make our money and data work harder for us.

 - Openpay is a Mexican startup that offers an advanced platform of physical and electronic payments for businesses. Created with software developers in mind, the platform offers a wide range of online payment solutions and functionalities, outstanding among which are its sophisticated anti-fraud models.

Currently, Openpay has a network of more than 15,000 payment reception points in Mexico, connected in real time through its Paynet network, and manages more than one million transactions a month. The Openpay platform is used by more than 1,000 businesses in Mexico, from startups to SMEs and large corporate clients.

- The synergies between BBVA Bancomer and Openpay will multiply the commercial capacities of both companies, complement their catalogue of products for corporate clients and allow them to strengthen their payment solutions.

- BBVA Bancomer supports the entrepreneur ecosystem through its Innovation Center and propels fintech companies with its Open Talent (OT) competition. It also promotes direct associations with startups to validate their business models and offers financial services to benefit customers. Openpay was a finalist in Open Talent 2015, in an event that involved 652 projects from 63 countries and close to 200 experts.

Atom Bank today announced that musician and tech investor will.i.am will join its board as strategic advisor. The UK's first mobile-only bank went live exactly one year ago.

As part of BBVA Compass' promotional campaign, Check It Out, Houston-area client Derrick Russell was recently awarded $1,000 for depositing a one-penny check through the Mobile Deposit® feature on the BBVA Compass Mobile Banking app.

“Data is the fuel of the new economy and big data is its engine”, said BBVA Executive Board Director José Manuel González-Páramo, during a talk at John Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. With these words, he summarized the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is also causing a radical transformation of the financial sector. This revolution is causing us to “rethink traditional retail banking.”

BBVA’s Head of Legal & Compliance Eduardo Arbizu, said this Wednesday that “in the field of compliance, digitization offers very significant opportunities”. He highlighted the importance of an organization’s culture in minimizing conduct risk, indicating that it “really is what makes a difference.”