The Astonishing Ways BBVA, Spain's Second-Largest Bank, Uses A rtificial Intelligence To Transform Itself

The Astonishing Ways BBVA,
Spain's Second-Largest Bank,
Uses AI To Transform Itself

© 2018 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
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IntroductionIntroduction
When Francisco Gonzalez, who at the time was executive chairman of Spain’s
second-largest bank, BBVA, proclaimed in 2015 that "BBVA will be a software
company in the future," it was undoubtedly met with a fair amount of skepticism.
However, beginning in 2007 and continuing to today, BBVA is working diligently
to achieve his vision. Here we discuss just a few of the ways BBVA uses
technology to transform and get ready for the 4th industrial revolution.
The Astonishing Ways BBVA, Spain's Second-
Largest Bank, Uses AI To Transform Itself

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Even though BBVA’s history dates back to 1857, the bank is firmly focused on
being a disruptor in the financial industry today and into the future. BBVA is a
global financial services group with operations in Spain, Mexico, South America,
Turkey, and the United States.
The company's leadership is mindful of the changes to the financial services
industry that require new approaches to doing business.

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This includes more pressure on profitability, specialized players in the market, the
opportunities presented by a large amount of data collected and game-changing
technology, and consumers who expect digital experiences.
As a result, the company invested in improving its platform (especially regarding
mobile functionality) and created new digital tools and acquired other tech
entities.

BBVA Tech Innovations
A customer-centric platform was one of the first priorities and technology
investments for BBVA. The platform is scalable, modular and operates in real-time
to provide mobile customers service they demand.
Also, this platform allows BBVA to develop services such as the BBVA Wallet, a
mobile payments app, that make the bank competitive among new startups and
digital companies.
BBVA also plans and develops products with a framework similar to how financial-
technology startups plan and develop products. This rapid-fire ideation and
prototype process makes the company agile, productive and able to deliver
innovation on a similar timetable to digital giants.

Gonzalez believes BBVA's biggest competitors will eventually be tech giants such as
Google and Amazon, so he is focused on transforming his bank to be able to
compete with them well before they choose to enter the industry. BBVA's
knowledge of its customers and what they want should be a way to help the
company stay competitive even if the tech giants decide to step into banking.
Another innovative digital tool created by BBVA is the BBVA AvalBox that digitizes
company guarantees. As the first Spanish bank to offer an online tool to submit a
bank guarantee request and have it evaluated, a process that used only to be done
on paper and in person, BBVA enhanced the efficiency of the process; an innovation
that will impact thousands of businesses.

BBVA developed several other apps to support its customers with digital tools. The
company’s app for homebuyers called Valora pulls together data from a variety of
sources to give homebuyers price information on houses that are for sale,
comparable sales figures for homes that sold nearby and estimates what you can
expect to receive if you sell your house. An app to send payment between America
and Mexico called Tuyyo was also developed.

BBVA also recognized the potential for artificial intelligence to influence the
banking experience positively. The company collaborated with Google Cloud to
create Bconomy, an app that predicts future income and expenses for the next
month. Only 10% of the 10 billion interactions BBVA had with customers across all
digital channels were human to human; 90% were human to machine.
Machine learning tools can scan colossal data sets to ensure customers received
the best service and even recommend other solutions to help them solve other
concerns in an effort to achieve BBVA's mission to "help people make their financial
lives simpler." Through BBVA's Algorithmic Strategies & Data Science unit, the
company aims to automate trading processes with the assistance of machine
learning and artificial intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence Opportunities

Artificial Intelligence Opportunities
MIA, BBVA’s AI-based digital voice assistant, is deployed in its mobile banking app.
This allows users to speak to complete transactions, and if their request can't be
completed on a smartphone, MIA can redirect the user as necessary. The mobile
app BBVA uses in Spain offers 92% of the bank's products today, up from 16% just
three years ago. In 2017, BBVA launched its chatbot and mobile payments
functionality, Cashup.

BBVA Investments
Another way to see the digital transformation of BBVA in action is to look at the
company’s mergers and acquisitions—estimated to be around $1 billion. It is the
single largest shareholder in Atom bank, the UK’s first digital-only bank and one of
the fastest growing bank start-ups in Europe. It’s also the second-largest
shareholder in solarisBank, a pioneer of banking as a platform. These investments
and others illustrate that BBVA embraces fintech.
In fact, in 2016, the CEO of BBVA, Carlos Torres Vila outlined building strategic
alliances with fintech partners and digital mergers and acquisitions as key to the
company’s strategy. All of these investments led CBInsights to name BBVA as the
“most active acquirer of fintech startups in the last five years.”

BBVA Investments
So far, the intensity and rapid development of BBVA’s technological transformation
hasn’t resulted in huge profits. However, its forward momentum would indicate that
when the tech giants awake to the opportunity available in the financial world,
BBVA will be prepared to compete.

© 2017 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a
strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps
organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and
understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data,
blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is a frequent
contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day
Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that
reaches millions of readers.
Visit The
Website
© 2017 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a
strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps
organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and
understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data,
blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is a frequent
contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day
Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that
reaches millions of readers.
Visit The
Website

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The Astonishing Ways BBVA, Spain's Second-Largest Bank, Uses A rtificial Intelligence To Transform Itself

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The Astonishing Ways BBVA, Spain's Second-Largest Bank, Uses A rtificial Intelligence To Transform Itself