The benefits of a unified brand

With more than 76 million customers and almost 8,000 branches around the world, making a change of this magnitude was no simple undertaking, as it was a culmination of a year-long project that included the creation of a new logo, replacing tens of thousands of physical logos and thousands more digital ones.

While undoubtedly a complex process, for BBVA, it was also a necessary one that graphically represented the bank’s aim to deploy a unique value proposition and a consistent customer experience - similar to what people have come to expect from digital companies around the world.

According to BBVA USA Head of Retail Customer Solutions Manolo Moure, a focus on a consistent customer experience portends good things for customers when it comes to access to advanced products and services.

Moure: We are able to develop market leading products and services one time and deploy them to our sister companies globally.

“Thanks to our focus on reusing features across countries, we are able to develop market leading products and services one time and deploy them to our sister companies globally,” he said. “For instance, in Spain, BBVA’s mobile app has been named the best mobile app in Europe for three consecutive years. This same app has now been deployed in multiple countries around the world, including Peru and Uruguay, which means the customers in those countries also now are literally using Europe’s best mobile app.”

Moure says that this notion of a one-time development process will be a win for customers of the bank globally, as access to market leading products and services is just one benefit. The other two he points to are faster time to market and greater efficiency.

Moure: By reusing certain components across countries, [the time to create a product from the group up] is dramatically shorter and we can be more efficient in our capital deployment.”

“With the rise of technology, banking resources are now more alike than not, no matter where you go in the world,” he said. “But, creating a product from the ground up is a time intensive process. It can take up to a year before we can deploy products that we build. By reusing certain components across countries, that time is dramatically shorter and we can be more efficient in our capital deployment.”

Moure said that the bank is focused on knowledge transfer and collaboration between countries, which means teams freely share with each other. By the time the service is launched in one country and transferred to another, the first phases of product or service development are complete.

“The code our software developers would typically need to build from the ground up is already done by the country that first launched the product or service,” he said. “At that point, all we have to do to make it work for our customers in the US is account for any regulatory differences or aspects that are unique to US consumers and banking laws.”

While this is a logical way of conducting business - after all, all 126,000 BBVA employees are on the same team - Moure says it hasn’t always been this way, which is why the very public launch and adoption of a globally unified brand is essential.

Moure: Being known as BBVA in all 30-plus countries where we operate is a huge milestone and a tangible representation of where we are headed as a company.

“Being known as BBVA in all 30-plus countries where we operate is a huge milestone and a tangible representation of where we are headed as a company,” he said. “Think of it like this - traditionally, in the US, when you get married, you drop your last name and use your spouse’s as a representation that your lives are intertwined and your fates aligned. That’s what we’ve done at BBVA. We dropped our local last name to show that we are one, and the success of one of us is the success of us all.”