Technology

Web components are a set of features that allow the creation of reusable elements in web pages and applications. When developing, you get fast and efficient delivery of consistent, high-quality user interfaces for all platforms. But creating web components can be tedious and repetitive, so how can we improve it? The use of some tools or libraries such as Lit makes it possible to speed up and optimise the process.

Digital channels have become the main way banks interact with their customers, both to check information and to carry out any kind of transaction. In this context, biometrics are gaining ground as they are a safe way to verify that customers are who they say they are. “At BBVA, there are over 40 use cases on a group level in which customer identity must be identified by biometrics, one of the most secure ways to prevent fraud,” said Natalia Ortega, Global Head of Financial Crime Prevention at BBVA.

BBVA completed a successful pilot test of distributed execution of quantum algorithms across multiple conventional servers in the AWS cloud. BBVA's pilot, one of the first of its kind in the financial sector, provides the bank with a proprietary architecture to further explore the use of quantum computing in complex financial tasks.

Garanti BBVA Digital Assets will shortly be offering Avalanche c-chain support for AVAX coins to users of its Garanti BBVA Crypto mobile platform.

BBVA is a founding member of the Quantum Safe Financial Forum (QSFF), a safe space for collaboration between European and US financial firms promoted by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3). The alliance aims to foster the creation of new technological systems within the financial industry that are safe, secure and resilient to malicious attacks that rely on quantum computing.

In the past two years, BBVA added 7,187 professionals in the data and technology field to its workforce - a figure it plans to increase in 2024 with 2,700 new hires. Of this amount, 1,225 will take place in Spain for the bank’s headquarters in Madrid, Bilbao and Barcelona. Technology talent has become a key aspect of the Group’s digital strategy.

The future of the banking industry is shaped by technology and Garanti BBVA is working hard to design the banking model of the future. Garanti BBVA Technology is the bank’s latest and most disruptive initiative yet so it can continue to lead digital banking in Türkiye.

The bank is sponsoring the fifth edition of the Energy Tech Summit, which will be held in Bilbao for the first time on April 10th and 11th, 2024.

The Turkish central bank recently granted Garanti BBVA an operating license for its new subsidiary, Garanti Payment and Electronic Money Service, Inc., effective February 15, 2024. The innovative new company will begin offering a selected group of customers a beta version of its digital payment solutions under the TAMİ brand in March.

BBVA Spark, the bank for high-growth companies, has arranged a €15 million 'Venture Debt' facility for Cabify, the Spanish mobility company, which was launched 12 years ago in Madrid and became Spain's first unicorn in 2018. The proceeds will go toward fast-tracking the execution of Cabify's strategic plan, which focuses on boosting sustainable and affordable urban mobility.

BBVA is looking to spot and train the best in-house talent in the use of the large language models (LLMs) that are behind the success of the likes of ChatGPT, as it drives the exploration of projects based on generative artificial intelligence. To succeed in this task, it recently organized a DataRally, a competition in which some 440 employees tested their ability in interacting with one of these models. Impressed by the positive feedback received from participants, the bank may now apply the DataRally concept to the generative AI courses it will be running as part of its Data University in-house training program.

BBVA Switzerland has signed an agreement to collaborate with the blockchain company Metaco to host its digital asset custody service, a trailblazer in Europe, on the  Harmonize™ platform. With this agreement, the bank is embarking on a new stage in its crypto strategy, characterized by the highest standards in security and greater agility in transactions. In addition, it opens the door to BBVA expanding its range of services in the future in order to meet the needs of its institutional clients.

Accenture and The New York Times have devoted the latest episode of their ‘Built For Change’ podcast to BBVA’s ongoing transformation. David Puente, global head of Client Solutions, describes a process that has been hugely successful for the BBVA app, but which is still far from over. The next big impact: artificial intelligence.

Atom Bank, the UK’s first app based bank, has again received support from its long-term shareholders. BBVA, Toscafund and Infinity Investment Partners are participating in a new capital round of £100 million, about €115 million¹, to continue its growth in mortgages and loans to SMEs. Following this round, BBVA remains Atom’s leading shareholder.

BBVA has announced the creation of BBVA Technology, a new company that is to gather the experience and talent of the Group's three tech firms: BBVA Next Technologies, BBVA IT España, and Datio. The new company will have a more strategic focus while offering more career development opportunities for the bank’s tech teams.

IBM Institute for Business Value interviews Carmela Gómez on the opportunity that embedded finance brings to banks, digital platforms and consumers. The Global Head of Open Banking at BBVA states that embedded finance means a joint transformation of the entire ecosystem, both financial and non-financial, and that for its development to materialize, "we must look at the way in which our customers rely on interacting with financial services within their digital experiences. I believe banking will soon become very different from how we know it today, that’s why we need to fund this transformation now."

BBVA has incorporated a new form of connection to its treasury solutions via API, reducing companies’ integration times for BBVA Pivot Connect by 80 percent. The first three APIs, available on BBVA Pivot, make it possible for companies to manage and trace payments to suppliers, track international payments, and check balances and transactions in accounts in any country.

The main mission of BBVA's Security Operations team is to adopt all the necessary security measures in the face of an increasingly diverse cybercriminal reality. To this end, it has highly specialized teams in charge of assessing the security measures and processes implemented in the Group, as well as monitoring, detecting, and responding to any security risk or threat. Hundreds of hackers make up this team worldwide, organized into offensive, defensive, and transversal teams.

Iberpay, Swift, BBVA and several international banks have successfully completed the first pilot to process, in a real environment, instant payments between different currency areas. Their ultimate goal is to improve these international payments involving currency exchange in terms of speed, transparency, cost, availability and accessibility.

Chatbots have been automating everyday customer service tasks for years: they lighten the workload for employees and help businesses save time and money. The emergence of ChatGPT, however, has widened the scope of the technology, and its potential for streamlining and maximizing business processes, beyond anything we’ve seen before. The new chatbots can even write e-mails and debug computer code. ChatGPT’s instant popularity has prompted well-known app factories to launch a flood of similar artificial intelligence tools, but the benefits it offers for a specific range of communication and analysis tasks also come with limitations in a business setting.

The financial institution is launching a new job portal to attract people with technological backgrounds in the different countries where it has a presence. The Group expects to end 2023 with over 2,600 new hires of this type of professionals, 1,000 of which will be in Spain.

The bank will have HP computers at its headquarters through the Device as a Service model. The DaaS approach will provide greater business productivity and scalability, as well as sustainability benefits, achieving an estimated 32% saving in energy consumption.

BBVA in Colombia redesigned its smartphone app. From now on, the app will feature a new interface, run faster, offer more security and provide new functionalities. This marks the launch in Colombia of BBVA's global mobile banking app, which is already active in Spain, Mexico, Peru and Argentina, among other countries. Today, more than 1.7 million Colombian users are using the new version of the app on their smartphones.

All ventures are born from a clever idea, but not all new ideas end up becoming new companies. In addition to creativity, in order to materialize a business idea, it is essential to obtain financing, visibility and investors. Startup incubators are entities that offer entrepreneurs guidance, training and resources to materialize their project.

Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are everyday topics that have emerged as a new form of global economy. Thus, BBVA in Switzerland is launching Blockchain to go, a series of educational pills to provide people and companies with the necessary knowledge to enter this new world with confidence and security.

The concept of digital identity -the personal data we voluntarily or involuntarily share online- is a cornerstone of cyberspace. Defining digital identity, regulating it and empowering the user is the next challenge we face.

The bank has signed a collaboration agreement with the Legendaryum Metaverse to explore how immersive digital environments could change the remote relationship model both between internal areas and with customers. BBVA has opened a remote meeting room in Legendaryum to analyze the potential of these spaces and how they change the way users relate to each other and help in the design of specific banking services.

The Spanish tech firm has integrated dasGate in its platform and targets 100 percent growth by 2023, with €26.3 million in revenue and 278 employees.

In 2021, seven banks, with BBVA as the only Spanish bank, participated in the launch of Swift Go. There are currently over 600 banks in 120 countries that offer this solution for low-value payments, streamlining the collection of payment for services to cross-border clients for SMEs, and making it easier for individuals to buy online in other countries. 85 percent of the payments made on this service are completed in three minutes or less.