Social affairs

BBVA ‘Aprendemos juntos 2030’ is debuting the second season of ‘Desafios’ (Challenges), the program in which Generation Z talks about its challenges. In the seven years since it was launched, the global project has surpassed three billion views and has over eight million followers.

BBVA is to donate €31.89 million for the people affected by the earthquakes in Türkiye. BBVA has also launched a series of campaigns to collect contributions from employees and customers.

Garanti BBVA makes it a top priority to make life easier for customers, including people with disabilities. That is why the bank now provides hearing-impaired customers with fast, user-friendly access to a live support assistant over its mobile app.

BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila announced today at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos that BBVA and the Edison Alliance are joining forces with the BBVA Microfinance Foundation's commitment to contribute to the digital inclusion of vulnerable populations in Latin America.

BBVA's research unit revised its Spanish GDP growth forecasts downward to 4.1% in 2022 and 3.3% in 2023 (from 5.5% and 4.9% previously). The downgrade takes account of the impact of the invasion of Ukraine, the sanctions imposed on the Russian economy, and steeply rising prices—especially for fuel and electricity—over the past few months, as indicated in the latest 'Spain Economic Outlook' report presented by Jorge Sicilia, Director of BBVA Research and BBVA Chief Economist, Rafael Doménech, Head of Economic Analysis, and Miguel Cardoso, Chief Economist for Spain.

The BBVA Foundation presented the Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Social Sciences to Mark Granovetter, “the most eminent economic sociologist in the world,” for revealing the power of “loose social ties” among individuals for people's economic and social performance.

BBVA allocated €106.3 million to social programs and initiatives that benefited 44.2 million people in 2021. This figure accounts for 20% of total planned expenditure, as announced in the Bank's Community Commitment for the period 2021-2025 (€500 million). In the first year of the period, 45% of the goal of reaching 100 million people has almost been achieved.

Garanti BBVA strives for sustainable development and the participation of women in economic activity. Now, the bank is celebrating the 15th anniversary of its comprehensive and continuous approach to supporting women entrepreneurs.

BBVA launches the fourth edition of BBVA EduFin Research Grants, the international call for grants from BBVA's Center for Financial Education and Capability. This initiative seeks to support research on topics related to the challenges of financial education around the world. The deadline for receiving proposals is September 24.

“Financial health impacts more than just our wallets, it is also related to our physical health and social well-being.” This was one of the key takeaways that emerged during the closing day of the EduFin Summit 2021. In this last session, representatives of the financial industry acknowledged that it is necessary to “understand and address customers’ needs, and to even go beyond” and that, for this purpose, “digitization is a lever that will help people strengthen their finances.”

The private and public sectors must work together to improve nationwide financial education and inclusion strategies and plans. This was one of the key takeaways that emerged during the fourth session of EduFin Summit, the financial education summit organized by the BBVA Center for Financial Education and Capability. The session concluded with an interactive workshop, where attendees shared their experiences regarding obstacles, success stories and disruptive elements that affect the expansion of financial education.

New technologies are changing the way financial services are delivered. That is why financial inclusion must come hand in hand with digital inclusion and “in this journey, solid financial education is essential.” These were some of the conclusions of the experts who participated in the third session of EduFin Summit 2021, the global financial education summit organized by the BBVA Center for Financial Education and Capability. Participants shared their insights into the challenges of financial vulnerability and solutions to reduce it.

Access to financial services and the digital divide were two of the main issues addressed during the second session of the 2021 EduFin Summit. The experts who participated in this session agreed that the pandemic has accelerated financial digitization in everyday life, and stressed the need to improve the level of financial education in order to access digital products and services that support inclusion and financial health.

EduFin Summit 2021, the conference on financial education organized the BBVA Center for Financial Education and Capability, will bring together leading international experts in this field of studies. According to experts, financial knowledge should play a more relevant role on people's lives, more so in the post-pandemic era.

One year after the outbreak of the health crisis in Spain, we spoke to some of the leaders in the fight against the virus to find out how aid was mobilized. In the case of science, researchers consider this aid “essential for the research of this pandemic.” Three and a half million people have benefited from the global plan that BBVA launched in March 2020, ‘Social Response to COVID-19’. The money has been used to purchase medical equipment, support vulnerable groups and for research on the disease.

Spanish banks are to provide a deferral of up to three months on rent payments for families affected by the coronavirus and living in dwellings belonging to the Spanish Social Housing Fund.  This fund was created in 2013 and includes more than 10,000 dwellings in Spain that are the property of lending institutions.

While the pandemic created by the novel COVID-19 develops and sends Americans down an unprecedented path, fraudsters are jumping at the chance to capitalize on that uncertainty.

Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, warns that his asset management company (the world's largest) will take action against investee companies that do not consider sustainability. "We will be increasingly disposed to vote against management and board directors when companies are not making sufficient progress," he warns in his annual letter to the CEOs of the world's leading companies.

Human beings have always dreamed of magnificent cities. The imagined and mythical, like the so-called Lyonesse not far from the coast of Cornwall, or the Seven Cities of Cíbola located somewhere in the southwest of North America, or El Dorado, hidden in the pre-Colombian jungle. Surely behind these dreams looms the aspiration to find a model of harmonious coexistence. These would be cities attuned with the natural environment that surrounds them. With hanging gardens like those in ancient Babylonia or cloistered in a precious valley like Machu Pichhu, although these two examples actually did exist.