BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A)., a Spanish multinational financial services company, is making changes to its Open Talent competition for early-stage firms and startups, in order to work cooperatively with Fintech businesses.
BBVA is one of the world’s largest financial institutions. It offers services in Spain, South America, North America, Turkey, and Romania.
The 2020 Open Talent competition will require Fintech startups to solve various real-world problems. These challenges include developing solutions for Regtech and for personal finance management.
The winners of the talent competition will get the opportunity to work through a proof-of-concept (PoC) program that will be managed by the BBVA. The program will ensure that there’s a good chance of developing useful products and services for the Spanish banking giant.
The program appears to be part of BBVA’s Open Innovation initiative, which consists of an entire ecosystem of Fintech companies.
Ainhoa Campo Nieto, head of the Open Innovation unit at BBVA, stated:
“For the last year and a half we have focused on being closer to the bank. Open Innovation has been working for the past 10 years with the view to connecting with the ecosystem – but what we realized, and for a variety of reasons, is that we actually weren’t close enough to the bank itself.”
The Open Innovation division treats the BBVA just like one of its regular clients, which means it specifically works with Fintech firms that can help the Spanish institution solve practical problems.
There will be an increased focus on promoting sustainability, Campo said.
She added:
“[The BBVA will] be looking increasingly for businesses that are building fintech tools focused on sustainability – whether that is around helping individuals and companies be more environmentally friendly, or that link financial performance to tackling climate change, or whether their solutions help support sustainability in communities.”