BBVA and Malta Inc. (“Malta”), a pioneering company in electro-thermal long-duration energy storage solutions, whose corporate goals align with the advancement of decarbonization using innovative cleantech, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). This agreement lays the groundwork for a strategic partnership aimed at developing innovative financial solutions to support the deployment in the Iberian Peninsula of Malta’s first-of-a-kind (FOAK) energy storage project. It´s a pioneering cleantech collaboration announced at Breakthrough Energy Summit in London

Seray İmer, Head of Sustainability at Garanti BBVA, recently took part in a ‘Sustainable Future’ show on Bloomberg HT TV, where she outlined Garanti BBVA’s key commitments and targets for a less polluted world.

Garanti BBVA received 10 different awards at the EMEA Finance Achievement and Project Finance Awards. EMEA Finance is one of the leading financial publications in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The President of the BBVA Foundation, Carlos Torres Vila, championed the power of knowledge during the ceremony for the 16th BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards. Knowledge is the key to solving the problems we are experiencing as a society, at a moment when humanity is going through an unprecedented wave of disruption and faces the challenges of climate change, he said.

“BBVA is a great ally for Spanish companies as they take on their sustainable transition and international expansion,” remarked Javier Rodríguez Soler, Global Head of Sustainability and CIB at BBVA. His presentation was part of the 41st Seminar organized by Spanish financial press association APIE and titled ‘The role of businesses in the new economy’, being held in Santander. “At BBVA, we support and accompany our clients, and not only multinational firms, but also those companies that need more specific advice to help them continue to grow,” he said.

The EIB Group (European Investment Bank and European Investment Fund) has invested €377 million in the ¨BBVA Consumer 2024-1¨ securitisation fund. This investment will enable BBVA to channel nearly €800 million into the real economy to finance energy efficiency projects and new mortgages for highly energy-efficient homes. The operation also includes financing for projects to boost the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and mid-caps in Spain.

This Wednesday, BBVA Spain Country Manager Peio Belausteguigoitia underscored that Spain is meeting its growth targets, including adding 3.6 million new customers in Spain and boosting its main lines of business, such as the corporate banking segment. His presentation took place at a summer course held at the Menéndez Pelayo International  University, and was organized by the financial press association APIE and BBVA. BBVA also had a strong performance in Italy, where the bank has now reached 500,000 customers. The success of this digital banking model has led BBVA to consider expanding to other countries in Europe, with the focus currently on Germany.

BBVA has completed the sale of a portfolio of unsecured non-performing loans valued at approximately €270 million. This transaction is expected to positively impact the bank's non-performing loan (NPL) ratio in Spain, which was 4.11 percent at the close of the first quarter of 2024.

BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila and Spanish Minister of the Economy Carlos Cuerpo launched the 41st edition of the APIE Seminar in Santander, Spain on Monday. The event focuses on the role of companies in the new economy. In his presentation Torres Vila emphasized BBVA's support for Spanish businesses, particularly SMEs, which he identified as key drivers of the country’s growth and development. Specifically, he said, “our view of the importance of SMEs is one of the reasons for the offer we presented to Banco Sabadell shareholders a little over a month ago,” as the bank holds a strong position in this segment. “The transaction represents a clear commitment to SMEs, and will further reinforce our commitment to this kind of businesses,” Torres Vila stated.

Garanti BBVA announced the renewal of its sustainable syndicated loan. The bank plans to use the loan to finance foreign trade, for general corporate purposes, and to further its commitment to finance investments that support the transition to a low carbon economy.   Indexed to sustainable criteria, Garanti BBVA was the first bank in the world to launch a syndicated sustainable loan in 2020.

The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez; the President of Türkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; and Carlos Torres Vila, Chair of BBVA and Co-Chairman of the Spanish-Turkish Business Council, opened the Spain -Türkiye Business Meeting, which was held on Thursday at Ciudad BBVA in Madrid.

Garanti BBVA now offers end-to-end online loans for 40 automotive brands. In July 2023, the bank became the first to offer this service, starting with two brands. The loans for zero-kilometer vehicles are available for the bank’s corporate clients, small businesses and self-employed on the Garanti BBVA Mobile app and website.

Garanti BBVA continues to enhance its offerings, simplifying life for customers by integrating vehicle-related products and services into a single platform with the "My Vehicle" feature on Garanti BBVA Mobile, the most widely used banking app in Türkiye. Customers can add their license plate information to Garanti BBVA Mobile to track all transactions, expenditures, and campaigns related to their vehicles in one place.

The BBVA CEO indicated this Wednesday that creating value is the bank’s main priority and guides the way in which BBVA manages its business. At an investors conference organized by Goldman Sachs in Madrid, Onur Genç said that BBVA’s commitment to optimal capital allocation is what distinguishes the bank from its peers in the markets where it operates.

BBVA will issue a total amount of $50 million and the resources will be used to  finance projects focusing on reforestation, the regeneration of natural forests on degraded land, mangrove conservation or restoration, climate-smart agriculture, and wildlife habitat restoration, among others.

BBVA tapped the market today with a euro-denominated contingent convertible (known as a CoCo or AT1) bond, attracting demand of €3.5 billion. The issue price was set at 6.875 percent, well below the 7.375 percent starting price.

BBVA has received the 'Alcance 3.0' award for the 'Best Comprehensive Scope 3 Emissions Reduction Strategy'. This award, presented by the CPOnet Group, recognizes the efforts of organizations that help reduce emissions in their value chain: suppliers, customers, employees, partners, shareholders and society.

Garanti BBVA’s mobile platform for cryptocurrencies now offers Avalanche c-chain support for AVAX coins, an asset in high demand in Türkiye.

The challenge of diversity is one of the key transformation pillars for any company. In the case of BBVA, ensuring a diverse workplace, in the broadest sense of the term, allows the company to better address the needs of its diverse customer base and offer a more comprehensive service.

BBVA has convened an Extraordinary Shareholders’ Meeting on July 5th¹ at the Euskalduna Conference Center in Bilbao. The bank is proposing to its shareholders the capital increase needed to proceed with the share exchange with Banco Sabadell. This capital increase will consist of issuing new BBVA shares that will be given to Banco Sabadell shareholders who take up the offer. BBVA shareholders are not required to make any disbursements.

BBVA is expanding its intermediate emission reduction targets for 2030 to two new sectors: the real estate sector in Spain and the global aluminum industry. They join the list of targets for eight emission-intensive sectors previously set by the bank (oil & gas; power generation; automobile; steel; cement; coal; aviation and shipping).

BBVA's decarbonization targets: What do they mean and what is their scope?

BBVA tapped the market this Wednesday with a €1.75 billion senior preferred debt issue, structured in two tranches. Demand was double the final placement, with orders reaching €3.5 billion. The first tranche, with a three-year maturity (June 2027), closed at a rate of three-month Euribor +45 basis points (versus an initial price of three-month Euribor +70 to 75 basis points). The second tranche, with a six-year maturity (June 2030), closed at the mid-swap rate + 75 basis points, versus an initial price of mid-swap + 100 basis points.

A takeover bid happens when an investor or a group of investors offers to buy shares from all the shareholders of a listed company. They usually offer a specific price for these shares or other securities that give them an ownership stake in the company.

Wind turbines in hard-to-reach areas or solar panels located in large semi-desert regions. How do we monitor these facilities without having to move human teams to remote areas?

Social media is shaping the financial behaviors of what is known as Generation Z, those born between the mid-1990s and the 2010s. New trends are becoming popular to the rhythm of TikTok. The latest philosophy adapts to the current financial uncertainty, and brings new terms we need to learn to know what young people are talking about when they talk about money.

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.

In a bid to protect its customers from telephone scams, Garanti BBVA has launched a new  feature in its mobile app to reassure customers that the calls they receive from the bank are being made via the bank’s secure channels. When taking a call from somebody claiming to represent the bank, the customer can track whether the caller is genuinely from Garanti BBVA and can see the name of the caller on the alerts screen in the mobile app.

After years at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI)-based research and projects, BBVA has taken another big step forward in the use of generative AI in its main markets. Not only has it prioritized around 100 projects to be developed with various tools that employ this new technology, it has also signed a strategic agreement with OpenAI —the creator of ChatGPT— to start deploying this cutting-edge tool among its employees. The aim is to explore, in a safe and responsible way, how generative AI can expedite processes, improve productivity and foster innovation thanks to its abilities to create text and images and process information, among other features.

Garanti BBVA recently held its fifth ‘Sustainable Future in Exports’ meeting in Adana, Türkiye, a hub for Turkish exports. The bank is organizing the series of meetings to encourage foreign investment in the country and boost Türkiye’s export sector in the framework of the European Green Deal.  The event brought together renowned leaders and experts in the field who offered their economic analysis and insights on possible sustainable solutions.

Garanti BBVA, a leader in digital payment innovation in Türkiye, has introduced the country's first biometric verification card, the Bonus Platinum Biometric Card. This groundbreaking product, described as a "game-changing technology" in payment systems, enables users to make quick, unencrypted, and secure payments by scanning their fingerprints. It also allows for limitless secure contactless payments, setting a new standard in the industry.

“In recent years, we have been increasing our business in key sectors while reducing their emissions,” said the Global Head of Sustainability and CIB at BBVA, Javier Rodríguez Soler. “We set decarbonization targets for eight key sectors and are reducing the absolute and relative emissions of these sectors. And we are doing so while increasing our financing business with these clients,” he stated at the Institute of International Finance (IIF) European Summit in Paris.

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.

The new Salt exhibition, ‘Hava Dair’ (About the Air)  aims to give life to the social and environmental aspects of air pollution through a series of different experiments. The exhibition, which is sponsored by Garanti BBVA, was designed by the Milan-based design studio 2050+ for Salt's Beyoğlu location. It can be visited free of charge until August 18th.

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.

BBVA’s Board of Directors is presenting an offer to Banco Sabadell shareholders so they can benefit from an exceptionally favorable proposal. The deal offers one BBVA share for every 4.83 of Sabadell, representing a 30 percent premium over the closing price of both banks on April 29th, and a 50 percent premium over the weighted average prices of the past three months. The transaction has very positive financial impacts thanks to relevant synergies and the complementarity and excellence of both banks. The operation will create one of the best banks in Europe, with a loan market share close to 22 percent in Spain. Furthermore, BBVA will maintain its current shareholders distribution policy and its commitment to distribute any excess capital above 12 percent.