BBVA has highlighted the role played by its digital transformation strategy in pushing the bank's earnings potential, saying that 19.2% of consumer loans in Spain last year were made purely through digital channels, double the number sold in the previous year.
Reporting a 10.9% rise in gross income to EUR23.68 billion for 2015, the Spanish bank put its digital programme front and centre of its full year results.
At the end of 2015, the banks says that 14.8 million of its customers interacted with the bank through its online and mobile channels, an increase of 19% compared to a year earlier. Of these, 8.5 million operated mainly through their mobile devices, up 45% y-o-y.
BBVA executive chairman Francisco Gonzalez, says: “We have 8.5 million customers who use their mobile but the important factor is not the number but rather the rate of growth. Mobile users are up 45% compared to 2014. Therefore the pace of digital transformation is going very well.”
Prominence was given to the number of sales made, with 19.2% of new consumer credits in Spain sold virtually, rising to 29.6% in Mexico.
The transformation process accelerated in 2015 thanks to the new structuring that was announced in May, accompanied by new strategic priorities, says the bank. At the same time the BBVA Group continued to launch digital products and incorporate new digital businesses. The latest move was the purchase of a 29.5% stake in Atom, a mobile-only British bank, in November, and the hire of Barclays' chief design and digital officer Derek White as global head of customer solutions.