BBVA Group's scale as a source of value creation in software development
At BBVA, we are undergoing a technological revolution that is transforming our software development process. In mid-2021, we launched Horizon, a global initiative aimed at overhauling our digital channels, particularly in the enterprise sector, and enhancing the scalability of our technological platforms to meet the increasing demands for customer interaction. The primary goal is to foster global unity by creating unique technical solutions that can be implemented across multiple countries. This approach optimizes our efforts, speeds up delivery times, and provides us with a competitive edge in an industry where economies of scale are crucial. Additionally, this project has enabled us to adopt a new strategy for executing global programs by forming geographically diverse teams across different countries.
Driving globalization and technological transformation
As previously noted, our main objective is to accelerate globalization within BBVA by developing and implementing unique technological solutions. This initiative clearly showcases our leadership in transforming the banking sector, leveraging our global scale to deliver solutions to customers more quickly and efficiently.
We have focused on four lines of work:
- Transforming digital channels for businesses.
- Building the foundational capabilities to transform our core banking systems, i.e., the central systems that support banking products and services and that date back many years.
- Providing our customers with a unique and secure digital experience to protect them against fraud.
- Building a unified data model.
Global reusable solutions
For us, globality involves creating technological solutions that can be developed once and deployed across multiple countries with minimal modifications, essentially avoiding reinventing the wheel by focusing on reuse.
This approach enhances our efficiency, speeds up the deployment of features to our customers, and ensures that they have access to the same functionalities regardless of country. This consistency provides us with a significant competitive edge.
Impact on customers and on the business
Horizon is delivering breakthrough capabilities that are genuinely distinctive, such as:
- New digital channels for businesses, both through apps and the web, to simplify operations and offer more convenient options tailored to our customers' needs. GEMA (Global Enterprise Mobile App) and SENDA (SMEs Desktop Application) are now available in Spain, Mexico, Peru, and Colombia. In Argentina, initial client pilots will commence in August, while in Spain, the mobile app pilot is set to begin in November.
- These new channels are already in mass use by more than 500,000 customers in the case of GEMA and more than one million customers in the case of SENDA.
- Beyond new channels, Horizon has led to the development of new digital products like streaming bulk payments. This feature significantly reduces the processing time for payments, bulk transfers, and payroll from days or hours to mere seconds, and it is proving to be highly valued by our customers.
- Horizon is also introducing new features to streamline our customers' operations. These include tracking payroll payments and wire transfers, which offer better financial control, as well as payment reconciliation. This provides customers with data-enriched transactions, simplifying and speeding up their reconciliation processes.
- Horizon has developed a global open banking platform that connects directly with our partners' platforms via APIs. This enables BBVA's financial products and services to be offered on a large scale to end customers through our partners' distribution channels.
Protection against fraud
We also prioritize security. In terms of fraud prevention, we are implementing more robust measures to enhance protection for our customers while ensuring a distinctive user experience.
We are therefore continually developing our capabilities to adapt to the changing tactics of the latest industry attacks. We are also adopting the best market practices and addressing specific needs identified in each region.
We are enhancing and encouraging the use of biometrics, incorporating a dynamic liveness test to detect potentially fraudulent videos or images. This technology boosts trust and improves the user experience by streamlining the process.
We are implementing a mechanism for 'Soft Token' signing, which generates unique temporary codes as a protective measure, replacing SMS as the authentication factor. The Soft Token can be easily deployed on customers' mobile phones, helping us circumvent social engineering attacks that exploit SMS. It also reduces friction for customers who do not receive SMS, such as when they are abroad, and eliminates our reliance on telephone companies for transaction authorization processes.
Another distinct advantage is the 'Out of Band' capability. This feature allows us to enable signatures with channel separation, meaning operations initiated on the web or through a contact center can be signed using a mobile phone.
Data management
We are also developing a unified data model, which serves as a fundamental pillar for creating unique solutions and enabling the development of global analytical models and engines.
The unified data model has seen significant progress with Horizon, achieving over 80% completeness in data ingestion on average. It is widely used in many global analytical models and is increasingly being incorporated into local country initiatives.
Conclusion
At BBVA, we are significantly advancing our software development processes, creating unique technical solutions that are deployed across all countries more quickly and efficiently. While the Horizon project still has progress to make, it marks a new era in BBVA's transformation, aiming to deliver innovative and secure solutions that benefit millions of customers worldwide.