Innovation and Technology

The global financial services group Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (BBVA) signs a Strategic Whole Portfolio Agreement with Cisco. The agreement gives BBVA access to Cisco’s full software portfolio, world-class technology and Customer Experience (CX) services, supporting the bank’s digitization journey. Five-year agreement enables BBVA to integrate continuous innovation into daily operations, enhancing speed, agility, and offering the latest in digital financial services.

BBVA widens its sustainable business with a global finance unit that will focus on cleantech innovation, announced BBVA Chair Carlos Torres Vila at the 3rd BBVA Sustainability Forum, held Thursday at the bank's headquarters in Madrid. The specialized team, based in New York, London and Madrid, will offer lending and advisory services.

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.

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.

Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Red Hat, Cisco, IBM, Genesys, Salesforce and Telefónica all form part of BBVA's strategy of technological alliances. Thanks to these partnerships, BBVA has built up ways of working together, set up expert teams and developed cutting-edge tailor-made solutions with the most innovative tech companies, which are key to its growth and digitalization plans.

BBVA, Banco Santander and CaixaBank have joined forces to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing the banking sector, financial fraud. The three Spanish banks are working on tools to exchange relevant information and data to help prevent financial crime.

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.

With an end-to-end vision firmly focused on prevention and customer protection, BBVA launches a new unit to further strengthen the bank’s financial crime prevention structure. Technology, advanced analytical models and artificial intelligence will be decisive in ensuring the proactive protection of customers, the bank itself and society, and are what underpin this cutting-edge unit within the Spanish banking industry.

BBVA uses AWS to deliver advanced analytics and data services in the cloud, taking a decisive step in its data and artificial intelligence (AI) transformation process. As part of its transformation into a data- and AI-driven organization, BBVA will use AWS to harness analytics and machine learning to transform its internal processes, improve risk management, drive growth, and provide innovative solutions for its customers.

BBVA has announced the roll-out of its BBVA Spark business unit in Colombia. The new unit will offer an end-to-end financial services proposition aimed at entrepreneurs and tech companies at different stages of development. This includes a full range of banking products and services, specialized support and access to the tech industry ecosystem.

BBVA and Wallbox, one of the world’s leading providers of electric vehicle charging and energy management solutions, have signed a €25 million financing agreement through which the bank aims to support the Spanish company’s growth plans.

Jose Luis Elechiguerra, Global Head of Engineering at BBVA, faces 2023 with a focus on continuing to evolve the technology platform to provide new capabilities that allow us to offer the best solutions to customers. To do this, he maintains his commitment to disruptive technologies such as the cloud, artificial intelligence, big data or biometrics, without losing sight of the digital regulatory framework, as he mentioned in the CIO Spain interview.

At the 18th edition of the ‘IMI Conference Turkish Contact Center Awards’, Garanti BBVA was recently presented the award for the ‘Best Digital Solution’. The event was held as part of the Turkey Communication Center Days. All sectors using call center services participated in the competition.

Investor interest in the healthcare innovation market is reflected in record funding numbers and a myriad of opportunities for startup growth and collaboration. However, it is not all plain sailing for entrepreneurs in the sector, who face challenges such as the need to differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded landscape.

Machine learning, metaverse and chatbots are some of the technologies that stimulate and facilitate learning in a virtual environment with great potential. Edtech startups, including some thirty unicorns, are confronting the digital divide to achieve the democratisation of knowledge thanks to the Internet and are coming up with innovations to motivate students in front of the screen.

Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc., a global leader in adaptive HR solutions, announced that BBVA is leveraging Cornerstone’s tools to develop and enhance its employee growth strategies and manage various talent areas, including recruitment, assessment, learning and mobility.

The British publication The Banker, part of the Financial Times Group, has selected BBVA as the best digital bank in Europe and Latin America in its Innovation in Digital Banking Awards. The specialized magazine also granted a third prize in this edition for the best Bank/Fintech Partnership, specifically to Veridas' biometric solution for BBVA Mexico's pensioner customers.

BBVA has implemented a comprehensive cloud-based solution that simplifies theprocess of sending and validating information, providing carbon footprint indicators andemission reduction tracking figures. It is a platform that will enable active, data-drivenmanagement of its sustainability policies.

Over 2.9 billion people around the world have never used the internet. Whether through lack of infrastructure or gaps in learning, unequal access to ICTs (also known as the digital divide) is an obstacle to development. We explore what options are available to heal the wound that affects 37% of the world's population.

BBVA has renewed the processors of its Data Processing Centers (DPC) in Spain and Mexico, with the help of IBM, to achieve significant energy and environmental improvements. In the case of its DPC in Tres Cantos (Madrid), a recent study carried out by BBVA has concluded that the installation of the new IBM z15 central processing equipment is already allowing the use of 50% less energy than with the previous data processors and, in a period of five years, the emission of carbon gases will have been reduced by half, a very significant figure when it comes to moving towards a more sustainable model.

BBVA’s Turkish franchise has integrated the country's code standards into all of its mobile channels, ATMs and POS devices.

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.

A team of university students from Mexico developed an app in just three days to meet customers' needs in terms of finances, entertainment, shopping and transport. Thanks to their business acumen and the use of artificial intelligence and QR code payments, they were able to win the 2021 BBVA Hackathon, which brought together 752 participants from different countries virtually.

Some of the countries in which, BBVA Open Innovation, such as Peru, Spain and Colombia, will participate in BBVA Hackathon 2021, which is organized by BBVA Mexico. The goal is to support the digital transformation of financial services through challenges posed by business units, as well as a global  ecosystem of entrepreneurs and developers.

Global Finance magazine has announced the winners for the 2021 Best Digital Bank Awards. BBVA has become the only Spanish bank recognized by the publication in two categories: Best digital bank for SMEs, and best corporate mobile banking app in Western Europe.

The Payment Systems Department (GÖSAŞ) at Garanti BBVA is developing innovative solutions to meet the new needs of both businesses and SMEs while streamlining their digitization process.

Biotechnology is by no means a new discipline, although it does encompass many others. Today, it is advancing by leaps and bounds and has an increasing range of applications: from pharmaceutical development, with the production of vaccines for COVID-19, to the creation of biofuels and more sustainable industrial processes, not to mention the treatment of polluting waste.