The United Nations warns about one of the most significant global issues facing humanity, as reflected in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13: climate change and its impacts. “Without action, the world’s average surface temperature is likely to surpass 3ºC this century. The poorest and most vulnerable people are being affected the most.” BBVA’s approach to business is accompanied by a firm commitment to mitigating the effects caused by climate change and integrating them into its risk management model.

José Manuel González-Páramo, BBVA Executive Board Member and Head of Global Economics & Public Affairs, opened in Madrid the third edition of Edufin Summit, the annual event organized by BBVA’s Center for Financial Education and Capability. In his speech, he noted that financial education is becoming especially relevant today, at a time when we’re seeing disruptive change everywhere.

BBVA was recognized in six different categories in the 2019 edition of the Euromoney Awards for Excellence. The bank won the award for the ‘World’s best bank for financial inclusion,’ ‘Western Europe’s best digital bank,’ ‘Latin America’s best bank for sustainable finance,' ‘Latin America’s best bank for transaction services,’ ‘Mexico’s best investment bank,’ and 'Best bank for corporate responsibility' in Central and Eastern Europe.

In an interview with the newspaper La República de Colombia, José Manuel González-Páramo, Executive Board Member and the Head of Global Economics, Regulation and Public Affairs at BBVA, stressed the importance of digitization and its impact on people’s well-being.

In this interview, José María Roldán, Chairman of the Spanish Banking Association (AEB), emphasizes the need to make sure that “no one is left out of the digitization process and the opportunities it creates”. Just a few hours before the opening of the third edition of the EduFin Summit - which will be held at Ciudad BBVA, the bank’s corporate headquarters in Madrid, on July 11 and 12 - the AEB Chairman weighs in on the financial sector’s approach to user confidentiality matters: “It is something that is ingrained in our DNA. And this is something that is not that clear in the case of many tech operators, whose main source of income is selling data,” he says.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12 entails using resources and energy efficiently, building infrastructure that doesn’t damage the environment, improving access to basic services and creating green jobs with fair pay and good labor conditions. BBVA helps to attain this SDG with sustainable action and initiatives designed to develop the economy and improve the quality of life life for everyone.

Flore-Anne Messy, the Head of the Insurance, Private Pensions and Financial Markets Division at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), views digitization as a source of opportunity and the best guide for financial institutions to design products that are increasingly customized and adapted to the needs of consumers and businesses. Messy is one of the most respected voices in the world for financial education. She will participate in the 2019 EduFin Summit, the financial education summit BBVA will hold in Madrid on July 11th and 12th.

The generation born between 1981 and 1994, known as Millennials, is reaching maturity in an ever-changing and very complex world where new technologies set the pace with increasingly sophisticated financial products and services. Today young people are looking for new sources of financial education to ensure they plan their finances properly.

According to the United Nations, today, more than half of the world's population lives in cities, a situation that will continue to escalate in the future. This has led to an increase in environmental pollution, inequality and poverty in these cities, a situation that testifies to the need to focus on advancing in UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) no. 11: To make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. In this task, BBVA also has a lot to say and to do.

"The Sustainable Development Goals and climate change entail a transformation on the same scale as digitization, but, in this case, the stakes are much higher” This is how BBVA Global Head of Responsible Business Antoni Ballabriga described "this present moment and the opportunity and sense of urgency that we are dealing with today as societies" in the face of climate change.