Big interview 3,700
BBVA offices in Spain and Portugal.
BBVA 3,800 The Local
Job losses at BBVA due to the pandemic, including the closure of 530 branches.
attentive to the technology’s disruptive potential for the financial industry.” It’s a fair claim, and one worthy of a company committed to becoming ‘truly’ digital. Nor is it the only place where BBVA is making changes. Like many other institutions, cloud computing is one area of focus. Among other things, the company has teamed up with Amazon Cloud Services and Bloomberg to create BBVA C-Fit, which will ultimately help the bank’s investment customers manage and understand vast data sets in real time. Then there’s the BBVA AI Factory. Encompassing a team of around 200 staff, the scheme works to bring what Elechiguerra describes as “advanced analytics” to all corners of the bank’s business. BBVA’s retail customers are enjoying their moment in the sun too, the bank’s mobile app boasting ultrasound fingerprint recognition, money movement, and outgoing payment alerts, among other features. These efforts are paying off. In 2019, BBVA’s banking app was voted the best in Europe for the third year running. Beyond the straightforward benefits for customers themselves, meanwhile, this flurry of activity makes sense for other reasons too. For one thing, it saves the bank time. According to one 2020 report, abandoning pen-and-paper reporting in favour of digital alternatives helps a dozen staff at BBVA’s US subsidiary complete the work once done by 100. Given the squeeze Covid-19 has put on the lender – apart from those 3,800 job losses, BBVA also plans to close 530 of its Spanish branches – that’s doubtless welcome. At the same time, going online has boosted BBVA’s market share. During the first six months of 2018, the bank sold over ten million units through digital channels alone.
“The technological challenges that we face today are, without a doubt, different from those we faced five or ten years ago – and will be different from the ones we face in five or ten years’ time.”
Of course, it’d be wrong to suggest that Elechiguerra can simply lounge in his corner office and expect these transformations to happen by themselves. On the contrary, he works closely with stakeholders across his business – beginning with customers. That’s particularly striking in the bank’s home market, where many elderly Spaniards lack the know-how to use new technology. “Our customers have had to face a steep learning curve,” Elechiguerra concedes, adding that his bank is constantly working to deliver intuitive customer experiences. To smooth the path ahead, the bank in 2018 unveiled BBVA Experience, a platform offering design seminars and training sessions for technicians with an artist’s eye. This is of a piece with what other banks are doing too. Once again, staying west of the Pyrenees can be
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revealing, with Santander recently penning a ‘design manifesto’ to inform how digital products are built. In a similar vein, the way new services are developed has had to change. With so many pots on the boil at once, BBVA’s staff are having to rush between projects every few months. That’s why the bank has honed the so-called ‘3–6–9’ model. It works like this: staff have three days to identify who’ll work on a project, six weeks to deliver a prototype, and nine months to get it to customers. That’s not easy in practice, but Elechiguerra says that promoting collaboration between departments can help get updates out on time. As he puts it: “We started building our capabilities to ensure that we delivered the best digital product in the financial industry, taking into account our design skills, our engineering skills, our technological evolution, our ways of working, agile, integrating the business with engineering.” Given 94% of BBVA’s retail products and services are now available as do-it-yourself transactions, you have to think they’ve succeeded.
Basquing in it As BBVA Experience implies, executives like Elechiguerra can no longer hide behind the shield of their job title – today’s CIOs do far more than just shepherd information. That’s true in boardrooms right across the financial space, with one recent poll finding that 64% of technology leaders now aspire to be ‘business co-creators’ too. All the same, Elechiguerra warns that his profession’s traditional jobs shouldn’t be forgotten either. “The technological challenges that we face today are, without a doubt, different from those we faced five or ten years ago – and will be different from the ones we face in five or ten years’ time,” he says. “In that sense, I believe what doesn’t change is the ability that the CIO needs to have to define how to meet these challenges. But one thing that’s changing is the speed at which technology evolves.”
And what about the future of BBVA itself? Despite a wobbly pandemic, the bank posted profits of €2.33bn in the first half of 2021, suggesting that its march towards the digital uplands is paying off. New opportunities seem destined to be waiting there, with Elechiguerra mentioning both blockchain and quantum computers as future areas of growth. On that second technology, BBVA is already making headway, partnering with Spain’s Senior Council for Scientific Research to make currency arbitrage faster and credit scoring fairer. “We are convinced,” says Elechiguerra, “that the intensive use of data and artificial intelligence are a great lever for differentiation.” It seems clear, at any rate, that the elegant palace in Plaza San Nicolas will soon host plenty more material – even if, one day, company memoranda and accounting books are stored in ones and zeros, where not even flood waters can reach them. ●
Future Banking /
www.nsbanking.com
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