This development is further evidence of the success of SWIFT's strategy to enable its customers to benefit from 3SKey on a global basis.

3SKey is a simplified signing mechanism for corporates and financial institutions. It secures the exchange of information in banking applications, enabling corporate treasurers to manage their various banking relationships using a single, multi-network personal digital identity. This reduces the complexity of managing the ever-increasing number of tokens and passwords needed to administer multiple accounts with multiple financial institutions.

Pierre Jalade, Head of Treasury, Airbus says, "After a successful pilot programme and smooth implementation in France, going live with 3SKey in Spain in 2011 with BBVA was an important step towards extending the solution internationally."

With this first implementation with Airbus, BBVA becomes the first bank to go live with 3SKey in Spain.

"Corporate customers have been asking us for improved security with simpler and more efficient processes" says Ricardo Segoviano Aceituno, Vice President, Global Customer Service, BBVA. "We decided on 3SKey as it is a user specific single device for signing files and strong authentication and is available worldwide. This solution enables us to offer our customers consistent banking capabilities regardless of the channel"

BBVA has also implemented 3SKey in six Latin American countries as well as Portugal, UK, France and Belgium, and it plans to introduce the solution in even more countries this year.

The number of international banks offering the personal signature solution to exchange financial transactions is continually increasing, as is the number of end users. Santander, Citi and JPMorgan Chase have recently signed up for the solution with the aim to deploy globally.

To date, more than 20,000 3SKey tokens have been distributed and there are 25 banking groups live, with many more in the pipeline. Some 40 application providers have integrated 3SKey into their solutions.