Financial education

With the aim of facilitating access to banking services, BBVA adapted its app in Spain for children at the end of 2022, allowing them to use functions such as mobile payments, Bizum and online purchases under parental supervision. Interested parents can open an account for their children between the ages of 0 to 17 directly on the app or at a branch. Since its launch, over 250,000 minors have signed up in Spain.

Deciding on what stock to buy is far from easy. Large investors rely on advisors and experts to manage their portfolios. However, non-professional investors have to rely instead on their intuition. Aside from trends and past performance, there are various stock market metrics that allow us to analyze whether or not it’s a good time to buy a stock, based on its price.

Students from the ‘5 Pebbles’ program visited 21 Garanti BBVA branches across Türkiye to learn firsthand about the different transactions that take place at banks. Garanti BBVA is a founding member of the Teachers Academy Foundation (ÖRAV) and has been collaborating with them to run this program since 2016.

BBVA is the Spanish company with the largest number of employees with the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) accreditation granted by the CFA Institute, the global association of investment professionals. More than 170 of the Group's employees in Europe, Mexico and other geographies hold this U.S. based accreditation. In addition, more than 50 BBVA professionals hold the Certificate in ESG Investing accreditation, also from the CFA Institute, which focuses on sustainable investment.

With the aim of supporting and helping members of society to manage their personal finances, BBVA organized nearly 50 workshops and training sessions in Spain for teenagers between the ages of 13 and 15. Over the past six months, 69 bank employees volunteered for the series of initiatives, which seeks to provide young people across the country with basic tools to learn to manage their personal finances and improve their financial decisions. BBVA has helped nearly 1,000 people with the programs launched this year.

A share is the smallest fraction of a company an investor can buy. The roots of this idea can be traced back to the Bronze Age. Modern concepts such as fractional shares, stock slices and stock splits have gradually added to the complexity of this financial asset over time.

It’s easy to be fascinated by a self-appointed ‘expert’ on social media who says you should give everything up to live off passive income or invest your savings in the flavor-of-the-month cryptocurrency. Especially if they do so while leaning on the hood of a Lamborghini or sipping a cocktail on the rooftop bar of a luxury hotel in Dubai. The danger of influencers is that they can end up ruining your finances. At BBVA's EduFin Summit 2022, Manuel Ángel Méndez, editor-in-chief of Teknautas, gave some tips on how to tell the difference between legitimate financial influencers and con artists.

Madrid and Mexico City hosted the 2022 EduFin summit, the annual financial summit organized by BBVA’s Center for Financial Education and Capabilities, which was held on September 29th and 30th. 25 experts from ten countries attended this international event, which has become a real benchmark in the field. Over 200 guests attended in person and over 1,600 watched via streaming. Throughout the event, participants discussed how digitization is revolutionizing financial education and propelling the inclusion of the most vulnerable.

See the video on YouTube of the first day of BBVA EduFin Summit 2022

See the video on YouTube of the second day of BBVA EduFin Summit 2022

Carlos Torres Vila to open EduFin Summit 2022, BBVA's global financial education event

BBVA to train two million people in financial education

Spot the differences between a knowledgeable financial influencer and a con artist

BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila opened the Edufin Summit 2022 this Thursday, with a focus on inclusive and sustainable growth via training in digital skills. At this forum, he announced that BBVA will train two million people in financial education between 2021 and 2025, doubling the initial target.

BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila will open the next EduFin Summit, the international financial education event hosted by BBVA's Center for Financial Education and Capability, which will take place on September 29 and 30. Mairead McGuinness, European Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and the Capital Markets Union, will participate in the opening ceremony. The conference will be held for the first time in two countries: Spain and Mexico.

BBVA has launched its Global Financial Education Plan through 2025 with the aim of training one million people and reaching 50 million people who access BBVA content on this subject. The plan, which will be implemented in all countries where BBVA is present, has three lines of action in financial education: society, business support and collaboration.

With December 2021’s data, BBVA customers using its digital financial health tools now exceed 11.7 million. This is the equivalent of a 48% increase in relation to the almost 8 million customers that used these features a year ago, according to the data recently made public by the bank.

BBVA continues to emphasize its digital transformation as an essential factor in achieving its ambitious goals, presented at Investor Day. In this interview, Global Head of Client Solutions David Puente highlights how being a pioneer in digitization gives BBVA an advantage to continue growing in areas such as payments and insurance, create alliances through ‘open banking’ and, in particular, to take a new strategic leap: evolve from providing services to proactive recommendations to help customers improve their financial health and transition to a decarbonized economy.

On Wednesday, BBVA’s CEO participated in a discussion on technology and confidence in the banking sector at the Global Banking Summit organized by Financial Times. Onur Genç explained that BBVA wants to be the bank its customers trust and help them to improve their financial health.

BBVA’s Center for Financial Education and Capability has announced the five financial education research projects that will receive funding through its grant program, BBVA EduFin Research Grants. A total of €50,000 will be distributed among the winning projects, whose research will take place in Spain, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina.

Social networks are experiencing an outburst of influencers generating content on financial topics. More than previous generations, millennials (those born between the early 1980s and the late 1990s) and centennials (those born starting in the late 1990s) appreciate when this type of information comes from someone like themselves. But regulators that have started to monitor their activity recommend taking precautions before following their advice and warn of the risks of turning investing into “a videogame.”

The BBVA Center for Financial Education and Capability has published the 2021 EduFin Position Paper, a document that represents the Center’s position on the current state of financial education at a global level. This report highlights the role of financial education and its challenges in contributing to a more sustainable society in the post-COVID recovery phase. According to the study, digitization and financial inclusion will be key. Its publication coincides with Spain’s Financial Education Day, which is celebrated on October 4 with the slogan ‘Your finances, also sustainable.’

Dividends are the best known and most widespread means companies use to distribute a portion of their profits to their shareholders. However, there are other ways to reward shareholders, such as share buybacks.

To measure and understand a banking entity's credit quality, several metrics must be considered as an interrelated whole. One indicator in isolation cannot give a full picture of credit risk. The three most widely used metrics are the NPL ratio, the coverage ratio and the cost of risk. These metrics enable us to analyze the volume of non-performing assets in relation to the size of an entity's loan portfolio, the provisions recognized to cover future default losses and the annual cost of generating this buffer of provisions.

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.

The BBVA CEO underscored banks' advisory work as an essential element in their new customer value proposition, during his participation in the sixteenth edition of the IESE Banking Meeting, held today under the motto “Helping to boost the economy.” Onur Genç also stressed that this advice is based on the trust and knowledge of an expert, and that through the use of technology and data, banks can improve the value they deliver to clients. In addition, he dubbed climate change one of the biggest disruptions in the history of mankind and also a huge opportunity.

“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.

BBVA Group Chairman Carlos Torres Vila stressed during his presentation at the opening session of the 2021 EduFin Summit the importance of financial education, which he considers “essential to promote a sustainable and inclusive growth.” Also participating in the event was Bank of Spain’s Deputy Governor Margarita Delgado, who underlined the importance of education to foster change toward a more sustainable world.

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.

EduFin Summit, the annual benchmark event on financial education organized by BBVA's Center for Financial Education and Capability, is back after a year of absence due to the pandemic. This year's online edition will begin on May 12 for five days during a three-week-period. Edufin Summit 2021 will address the state of financial education in the post-COVID era and the value of financial knowledge for contributing to inclusive growth, among other topics.

BBVA has invested €91.4 million in financial education programs that have benefited 29.2 million people (almost the equivalent of the population of Peru) since 2008, the year in which it launched its Global Financial Education Plan. On the occasion of the European Money Week and Global Money Week celebrations, BBVA also announced that in 2020 it devoted a total of €2.7 million to fund these initiatives that contribute to promoting financial health among communities.