Christer Holloman - Transactional to Transformational

Another lesson learned from the Propel experience was the evolution from a ‘pull’ model to a ‘push’ model for collaborations between the bank and startups. When the fund was started and the investments in the startups had been made, an effort was made to establish connections between the bank's business areas and the new emerging companies, but it was complicated. When it came to moving forward in the collaboration, problems often arose from both the bank and from the startups themselves. In the end, this model was eventually challenged because it was not giving the expected results. The initial objective for the creation of the fund was to have a radar on the latest fintech trends and have access to the knowledge that could be applied to the bank's transformation and strategies. The way of provoking this talent interchange evolved towards a ‘push’ model. The first step is now to identify BBVA team's specific needs and analyse which of the startups could help and is keen to resolve concrete business challenges and then a possible collaboration is studied. With this new focus, Propel became a very interesting source of knowledge for BBVA business areas.

Finally, the need to keep abreast on new and global ecosystems of interesting startups is also relevant. With Propel, BBVA started out with a strong focus on Silicon Valley, but over time it began to work on investments in other ecosystems around the world that also offered good opportunities.

For more than a decade, BBVA has seen itself as a digital pioneer that embraced the digital revolution in the industry and boldly embraced a vision that leveraged technology as the means to a better experience and more control for customers.

As BBVA moves into the next decade, the bank will continue to leverage this type of mindset to grow and deliver on its purpose of creating opportunities for customers, communities and society in order to secure a future that is sustainable, both from an environmental, social and economic standpoint, and focused on helping people improve their financial health.

Propel's next steps are related to completing the funds' maturity. This means completing the initial investment of $250 million to accompany the companies in which it has invested during this time in their next rounds of financing in order to continue studying possible collaborations between startups and the bank. In the future, BBVA will continue to play a role as an investor in the fintech world for the long term and will continue to bet on the Propel team in any scenario.

The bank has invested $50 million in Sinovation Ventures, the Chinese investment fund specializing in artificial intelligence created by expert Kai‐Fu Lee in order to gain access to insights in the growing Chinese market of artificial intelligence innovation. On this path, BBVA will keep a radar on where there is talent and capital in order to build projects that can transform the financial industry.

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