BBVA has more than 2,700 professionals dedicated to engineering and data science, a workforce that has been significantly strengthened this year with close to 200 hires and which is expected to be complemented by another 200 new experts in 2023. The bank will also open a new center of analytical excellence in Mexico, which will accelerate the development of global products. “The AI Factory is a successful model that we want to export to new countries,” says Ricardo Martín Manjón, global head of Data at BBVA, who recalls that “data is essential to meet BBVA’s business objectives.”
BBVA’s commitment to data dates back more than a decade. The creation of the Data area in 2017 as a strategic vertical that aims to bring data intelligence to all business units, together with the subsequent launch of the AI Factory, have made advanced analytics and intelligence artificial are at the center of BBVA’s strategy. Since then, BBVA’s commitment to data has been a constant and the bank intends to give it even more impetus.
“In the last three years, we have multiplied by seven the strategic projects data driven; and our plans happen to be managing more than 500 new initiatives in 2023”, points out Martín Manjón to show the increasingly relevant role of this area.
In order to meet all these objectives, BBVA plans to open a new AI Factory in Mexico to promote the development of new analytical products, especially aimed at taking care of the financial health of clients and helping them in their transition towards a more sustainable future. “At BBVA we have achieved a global analytical product creation modelwhich allows sharing the best solutions and developments with the rest of the countries”, comments Martín Manjón, who highlights the importance of investing in talent.
In fact, at BBVA they already work more than 2,700 professionals specialized in data (790 data scientists and 1,937 data engineers), a workforce that is being significantly reinforced: some 200 data experts have joined BBVA throughout 2022, with another 200 expected to join professionals next year. Around 10% of all these contracts correspond to Spain.
The efforts of all these teams will focus on the development of new products that will be added to the BBVA ‘app’, which is gaining more and more users, loyalty and greater interaction, thanks to data-based functionalities.
Currently, there are 12 functionalities of financial health, among which stand out services for the automatic classification of expenses in different categories or the visualization of subscriptions digital, like Netflix or Amazon Prime; or the supplies gas and electricity. These services generate up to 40 personalized notices that, for example, warn of a larger receipt than usual, of overdrafts in the account or offer suggestions to save and create a financial cushion.
BBVA has its financial health tools operational in Spain; and they are being deployed little by little in Mexico, Turkey, Peru, Argentina and Colombia. They consult them every month more than 13 million usersa 36% more than in 2021; and record almost 27 million interactions85% more than the previous year.
