The Bilbao-headquartered lender has built enviable profit ratios and become an industry-leader in adopting technology. Danielle Myles reports. 

All evidence suggests that BBVA is a leading light in the recovery of Spain’s financial sector. With the property crash and worst of the sector-wide restructuring behind it, the country’s lenders are free to embrace the early signs of Spain’s improving growth outlook.

BBVA is ahead of the curve. It has increased pre-tax profits year-on-year since 2013, recording a 34.5% rise in 2016. All the while, it has maintained a solid capital adequacy ratio of between 14.9% and 15.1%, and lowered its non-performing loans to 4.9% (down from 6.8% in 2013).

data trends 090517

What is most impressive is its return on equity (RoE). This ratio, being pre-tax profits divided by total equity, is the yardstick of bank profitability. Historically, a 10% RoE was the rough benchmark for sizeable banks, but over the past few years only a handful in Europe have exceeded 9%.

In 2016 BBVA’s RoE hit a whopping 11.53%, up from a respectable 8.3% the year prior. The year its profit ratios turned around was 2014, when it recorded a 7.71% RoE after dipping to 2.59% in 2013.

BBVA is at the forefront of digitisation and technical advancements in the global banking industry, which bodes well for its future profitability going forward. It has announced plans to close 8% of its Spanish branches during 2017 in pursuit of its goal to become a digital lender, and recently joined the Hyperledger initiative which aims to expand the use of blockchain in different economic and corporate sectors.

In March it appointed David Puente to a newly-created position of head of data. Mr Puente is charged with accelerating BBVA’s transformation into a data-driven organisation and will report directly into the CEO.

All data sourced from www.thebankerdatabase.com

PLEASE ENTER YOUR DETAILS TO WATCH THIS VIDEO

All fields are mandatory

The Banker is a service from the Financial Times. The Financial Times Ltd takes your privacy seriously.

Choose how you want us to contact you.

Invites and Offers from The Banker

Receive exclusive personalised event invitations, carefully curated offers and promotions from The Banker



For more information about how we use your data, please refer to our privacy and cookie policies.

Terms and conditions

Join our community

The Banker on Twitter