The transformation of BBVA has a very important pillar in the search for new business models that can directly impact the current way of understanding financial services. Normally these disruptive models come from digital companies and ‘startups’ that redefine part of the value chain of banking services, generating a new competition for which BBVA is preparing from its New Digital Business unit (NDB).
The digital giants… not afraid?
“The digital giants are not afraid to constantly change their business model, and they know how to handle a high degree of risk”, Garbayo emphasized before the financial professionals who attended the MoneyLive conference in Madrid. “With the trend of great technology entering all areas of people’s lives, banks must evolve their business model even beyond financial services, so as not to lose their relationship with customers. It also opens up new opportunities for those banks that can become global ‘partners’ of large ecosystems”, he said.
BBVA is getting ready
BBVA has been working for years to create these links with entrepreneurial ecosystems through several strategic lines, which begin with their open innovation initiatives. Particularly noteworthy in this area is the Open Talent competition, which has enabled BBVA to identify the most promising ‘fintech’ globally and establish links with them to seek ways of collaboration and jointly launch concept tests, while supporting and supporting stimulates innovation in the banking sector.
“In the ten years that we have been doing open innovation, we have learned that startups need a single point of contact to interact with the Group, and that if you really want to take a value out of these collaborations it is essential that there is an involvement of the business areas”, highlighted Garbayo. “It is important to speak the same language as startups”, the executive insisted.
BBVA and its strategies
BBVA combines these talent identification projects with a purchasing strategy (Simple, Openpay or Holvi) and investments (Atom or solarisBank). “These investments and purchases allow us to compete at the speed at which the market moves. They are only put into practice when the cost of buying is less than building and when they have differential assets”, added Garbayo, who believes that these purchases can be considered a success when” in addition to a financial return there is an exchange of knowledge of the company to the bank and vice versa”.
Also published on Medium.