Awards for Excellence 2019
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Ever-larger investments in digital banking have been an important part of European banks’ efforts to cut costs. At the same time, digital banking is central to their attempts to establish a growth story.
Western Europe’s best digital bank, BBVA, has an advantage, thanks to its early focus on digitalization under former executive chairman Francisco Gonzalez. When Gonzalez’ successor Carlos Torres Vila took up the baton in January, the benefits were already clear. Other banks in Europe and elsewhere cite the Spanish firm as one of those to beat in the digital game.
One of the first things the bank did was to make as many of its products self-service as possible – there were close to 1,000 of them in 2018. By the end of the year it reached its digital tipping point, with more than half of its clients globally using online channels, up from just over a third in 2016.
Its mobile customers have increased even more rapidly, up from 12% in 2016 to 23% at the end of 2018; and in Spain, 45% of sales took place on digital channels last year, up from 17% in 2016.
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Carlos Torres Vila |
BBVA’s aim for 2019 is to get at least half of customers onto the mobile platform, in the hope that it will increase the number of customer interactions – and therefore income – as they move from using the app for transactions to purchasing products.
As an example, the bank says its share of new commercial loans rose at a rate more than double the market’s growth, with most of them originated through digital channels. This was largely thanks to the recent launch of its Click and Pay product, which Spanish small and medium-sized enterprises can use for taxes, salaries and paying suppliers.
Spanish clients of BBVA benefited from the full launch in 2018 of Valora. This is a property search tool that suggests offer prices, renovation costs, details on the neighbourhood, insurance costs and likely future value, as well as a potential mortgage.
BBVA was also behind what it says was the first corporate loan to use blockchain from negotiation to signing in April last year. It signed its first so-called D-Loan contract, where the price floats in line with the borrower’s digitalization, at the end of March this year.
