To support AI-driven innovation, the bank has launched the AI Factory, a centre of excellence reaching from Mexico to Turkey, and currently counts more than 400 experts. Its staff research the latest AI trends, creating code for its Mercury library, for use by some BBVA 100 data scientists.
The bank leveraged generative AI in the latest update of its virtual assistant, Blue, which “lives” in the BBVA mobile app. Blue can process 3,000 different queries and provides a more natural, human-like experience for the app users. The bank’s AI experts have paid significant attention to guardrails and security protocols that ensure Blue is always grounded in the existing rules and policies, and that user data always stays protected and never leaves BBVA’s safe digital environment.
Unlike many other chatbot-based solutions, Blue is touted to be able to hold on to the context of a conversation, even if the user digresses mid-process. It is also aware of previous interactions and the customer’s financial situation, and can provide well-tailored advice from the get-go.
On the enterprise front, BBVA has developed a new platform that enables near real-time execution of mass payments, reducing processing times from hours to seconds — on par with the experience private customers have grown to expect. This is available across Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Argentina and Spain for domestic payments and payroll processing.
A message from Carlos Casas, global head of engineering at BBVA
The bank has embraced innovation in its sustainability effort with its Energy Advisor app feature, launched in Spain with the plan to expand to other BBVA markets in the near term. It predicts, presents and analyses the user’s household electricity and gas consumption and suggests ways to lower their utility bills by installing, for instance, solar panels or a heat pump. The advice is based on factors like climate zone, building codes and energy certification, and the client is directly presented with the potential cost savings estimation.
At BBVA, technology only makes sense if it’s used to support our customers’ needs
“At BBVA, technology only makes sense if it’s used to support our customers’ needs,” says David Puente, the bank’s global head of retail client solutions. “These initiatives . . . are just a glimpse of what’s to come. We are taking our AI-driven transformation to the next level — embracing a new way to support our customers in their personal journeys and business endeavours — to stay ahead of the curve and have a profound impact on the financial services industry.”
In 2024, the bank leaned into the digital-only banking model that it pioneered in Italy. By the end of 2024, it had achieved its 2026 target of 600,000 customers. Building on that success, the institution now plans to enter the German market in the coming months.
Overall, digital channels accounted for 66 per cent of the bank’s new client acquisition in 2024. Mobile penetration across this user base has hit 75 per cent, while monthly logins and transaction volume grew two times and 2.5 times, respectively, compared to 2020.
More recently, BBVA became the first bank in Spain to receive authorisation to offer custody and trading services for ether and bitcoin — something the lender is already doing in Switzerland and Turkey. It will also be among the first institutions to pilot the Visa tokenised asset platform later in 2025, effectively paving the way to offering the crypto flexibility and things like smart contracts for traditional currencies.
The bank has earned top net promoter score rankings in several markets, placing first in Spain, Mexico and Peru, and among the top three in all other markets where it operates.
ADA’s main goal is to consolidate data operations across all of the bank’s entities into a single, scalable platform, eliminating inefficiencies caused by fragmentation and capacity limits. It can support four petabytes of data and currently supports 30,000 datasets, 3,500 heavy users and 700,000 monthly processes.
“With ADA, our goal was to build the foundation for becoming a company that is truly data-driven. Over two years, we successfully executed a complex, multidisciplinary migration of our on-premises data platform across multiple countries. We replaced legacy infrastructure with a cloud-native solution built on AWS that unlocks scalability, agility, and continuous innovation,” says Carlos Casas, BBVA’s global head of engineering.
ADA has streamlined global compliance, strengthened security via AWS high availability features and improved data accessibility across BBVA’s business units. As a result, its analysts and data scientists now work within a single system.
It has also brought cost-efficiency, with a pay-per-use model cutting operational expenses by up to 40 per cent.
BBVA is one of the first banks to demonstrate that full cloud migration, versus hybrid approaches, is both compliant and strategically advantageous.
“ADA has significantly enhanced our ability to deliver personalised, efficient and secure data services, reducing time-to-market and improving operational efficiency. It provides a solid foundation to accelerate the adoption of advanced capabilities such as generative AI, real-time data processing, and unstructured data analysis, helping BBVA scale innovation faster and with a greater impact,” Casas says.
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