BBVA's transformation into a digital business is continuing at pace

In February BBVA inched closer to the tipping point for digital customers, with the group now recording more than 47% of its customer base as digitally active.

Over the past 12-months, that equates to a 27% increase in the digital customer base - while for purely mobile customers that growth figure stood at in excess of 45%.

Across all the countries where the group operates, the story was similar. In Colombia, for example, the business saw a 40% increase in digital customers, while the figures for mobile based customers shot up by 56% over the past year.

In Peru, the numbers were even higher - at 40% digital growth, but 65% on mobile - demonstrating the value customers are getting from using their mobiles to better manage their finances.

Market and society are changing at a great speed, with exponential growth in digital sales”

This trend is being seen not just in the way people view their accounts with BBVA, and understand the decisions they are making with their money and data, but with the way they take on new products and services too.

Earlier this week, BBVA CEO Carlos Torres Vila outlined how the business had tripled its digital sales in a bit over two years and they now account for 35% of the Group’s total. In Spain, this percentage is even higher: 41%.

He said: “Market and society are changing at a great speed, much faster than we expected just two years ago, with exponential growth in digital sales”. This trend – he added– is the result of the profound transformation that BBVA is currently undergoing.

“We’re an organization with extremely fast-paced work processes, with quarterly planning cycles and execution by highly autonomous – and coordinated – work teams,” he pointed out. In Spain alone more than 1,900 professionals are now using agile work methodology.

Going forward, the bank will also work harder to help customers make better decisions with their data, to support more informed financial choices.

In an interview published on Wednesday with Actualidad Economica Magazine Carlos Torres Vila added that while the future might involve BBVA working with partners, central to the digital transformation and progress of the bank was its ability to secure and respect people´s data and privacy.

He noted that here, we also envisage a relevant role for an institution such as ours, which has excelled at safeguarding our customers’ money, and we can also help them manage their data, their privacy. "That’s where we’re headed.”