Social Inclusion

Six young students from Colombia and Peru, the children of vulnerable entrepreneurs served by the BBVA Microfinance Foundation, met with the Queen of Spain after winning the college scholarships granted by the foundation and BBVA in Colombia. These scholarships cover tuition and academic costs for the young students until they finish their studies. It is an opportunity for them to have a better future for themselves and their families.

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.

The grants went to the children of micro-entrepreneur clients of Bancamía from all over the country, who will now be able to study at university thanks to the resilience, discipline, creativity and strength shown by their parents.

BBVA Asset Management (BBVA AM) has announced the winners of the fifth BBVA Sustainable Future Solidarity Call for Proposals, which distributes a total of one million euros among 23 NGOs throughout Spain. Their solidarity projects are framed within the areas of social inclusion, dependency, the elderly and health, and the environment. In these five years, BBVA AM has distributed more than €4.2 million among a total of almost 100 solidarity projects, generating a direct and indirect positive impact on more than 370,000 people.

Garanti BBVA, in cooperation with KAGİDER, organized the country’s Women Entrepreneurs Competition for the 16th time this year. The winners of each category of the competition were announced at the June 1st awards ceremony.

BBVA in Colombia and Bancamía, an entity of the BBVA Microfinance Foundation, have announced that the Transforming Realities Scholarship will widen its scope and, starting this year, will support 100 vulnerable young people in the country so that they can pursue university studies. This initiative benefits the children of Bancamía's micro-business customers throughout the country. In its three previous editions, it has benefited 21 young people from different departments of Colombia.

Around four million people have potentially benefited from the social bond that BBVA issued in 2021, in a placement that amounted to 1 billion euros. Almost 50% of the amount was allocated to the access to essential services category (health, education and financial services), followed by socioeconomic advancement and empowerment (37%), affordable basic infrastructure (12%) and affordable housing (0.6%). Such is the conclusion of the 2021 Green and Social Bonds Report just published by the bank. The document details the environmental and social impact generated by the projects and loans that have been financed with the proceeds of the green and social bonds issued by BBVA, S.A. since 2018, amounting to a total of €5 billion, of which €3 billion were green bonds and €2 billion were social bonds.

The BBVA Microfinance Foundation (BBVAMF) is the first private institution in the world to implement Oxford University's Multidimensional Poverty Index to analyze the condition of the 2.8 million people it supports in five Latin American countries. This indicator gives a better understanding of the gaps in education, health and housing faced by these entrepreneurs' households and enables designing value propositions to improve their living standards.

For the first time in history, the number of displaced people around the world exceeds 100 million, according to the latest UNHCR data. In Ukraine alone, eight million people have fled since February. To put it into perspective, if a country were formed with all of them, it would rank as the fourteenth most populous on the planet as they are equivalent to more than 1% of the world's population. This figure includes refugees and asylum seekers, as well as the 53.2 million people displaced by conflicts within their own countries. Many of them flee with little and have to start from scratch, sometimes from an even more vulnerable situation. Their settlement and success in the country of settlement depends very much on their legal status because displaced, migrant and refugee are not synonymous.

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.

The pandemic has shown the importance of having insurance to cover hospital expenses, temporary unemployment or death. These unexpected expenditures are a shock for people under vulnerable conditions and their household economy. Microinsurance are products tailored to address these needs and offer protection to low-income persons aiming to guarantee their well-being and security in the face of risks, all at affordable prices.

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.

As part of its goal to make life easier for its customers, BBVA’s Turkish franchise is partnering with BlindLook- a social enterprise that develops accessible technologies for the visually impaired.

In its annual report, Intrama includes the success stories of more than 30 Spanish companies with the best practices in Diversity and Inclusion, of which BBVA is one. The global human resources consulting firm highlights the financial institution's strategic alignment of diversity policies, the communication of its projects and the training provided to its staff in this area.

The BBVA Microfinance Foundation (FMBBVA) organized ‘Connected for digital opportunities’ - an event which H.M. The Queen presided over. BBVA Chairman Carlos Torres Vila, Bank of Spain Deputy Governor Margarita Delgado and the Director General of the BBVA Microfinance Foundation, Javier M. Flores, all participated in the event. The debate focused on boosting economic recovery from a more innovative and inclusive perspective through technology.

“At BBVA, there are more than 100,000 people working in over 25 countries, with a wide range of different cultures, experiences, beliefs, languages, etc. This diversity is a fundamental part of the recipe to our success, and it will make us stronger to face the challenges and opportunities that lie before us,” said BBVA Chairman Carlos Torres Vila at the main event of the bank’s Diversity Days, a series of internal events being held for the second year in a row to share important advances in terms of diversity and inclusion, and to create a space for learning for all of the Group’s employees.

When Blanca Huergo knocked on BBVA’s door less than two years ago, she could never have imagined that she would wind up visiting its Madrid headquarters to meet with its top executives. This young Mathematics and Computer Science student at the University of Oxford has become a role model for many girls in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) career areas where they are scarce.

The Turkish men’s wheelchair basketball team, the 12 Brave Hearts, will take part in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, sponsored by Garanti BBVA. The players, who have already accumulated some important victories in European and World Championships, including Gold in 2017 and Bronze in 2019 at the European Championships, will once again represent Turkey at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, as they did in London 2012 and Rio 2016. This year, the Turkish team will compete in Group A and will play against South Korea on August 26. In addition to the Korean team, the group is made up of teams from Canada, Spain, Colombia and Japan, the host country.

Turkey recently held its women's wheelchair basketball championship which took place in Hatay this year. As part of its social commitment, Garanti BBVA has been supporting this sport´s men's and women's teams since 2013.

Every June 28, the world celebrates sexual and gender diversity, a reality that is reflected in each of the letters and symbols of the acronym that defines this community.

'Diversidad Trans. Punto de encuentro' is the manual presented by the financial institution that includes guidelines and protocols focused on supporting trans or gender transitioning employees or customers. Diversity and inclusion in general, and particularly LGBTIQ+, are intrinsic to BBVA's DNA and are part of its strategic and business objectives.

Much has been written about generational differences and how to classify the population according to someone's year of birth. The truth is that there is no exact or official definition of when a generation begins or ends and, depending on which demographers or researchers you consult, there are discrepancies about the years that comprise each generation.

The agile work methodology, new skills that teams look for or the recent inclusion of diversity as a strategic business priority are some of the ways in which BBVA’s human team has changed over the past few years. Paloma Tejada, head of Talent and Culture, Agile and Communications, at Client Solutions, BBVA, spoke about all of them in a conversation with Matthew Gamser, CEO of the SME Finance Forum.

The financial institution celebrates Diversity Days, a conference that highlights recently implemented projects in this area and that draws a roadmap with the challenges and goals for converting diversity into the Group's DNA and as a key objective for the future.

Between October 2019 and June 2020 women lost jobs at a greater rate than men, while the employment recovery rate in the third quarter of 2020 was slightly higher for men, widening the gender gap. These are some of the key takeaways of BBVA Research’s 'Gender diversity and training' paper. According to the report, published on the occasion of BBVA’s diversity workshop (Diversity Days), training is one of the essential factors to reversing this situation and boosting women’s participation in the digital economy, a sector that’s recovering at a faster pace.

Access to technology and financial education improvement for the entire population, especially the most vulnerable, is essential to achieving an inclusive recovery. These have been the main conclusions from the latest edition of EduFin Talks, a space for reflection and debate on financial education's challenges organized by the BBVA Center for Financial Education and Capability in a 100 percent digital format.

For yet another year, BBVA renewed its commitment to diversity and inclusion and is named one of the Top 30 Spanish companies with the best practices in the field. It was reported in the 2021 VariableD Report from Intrama's ECDI Network, comprised of companies committed to diversity and inclusion. The organization presented its conclusions at the 2020 FactorW Diversity Summit which is the largest national congress on this matter.