Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria

The Mexican reality, worse than the global average.

According to the 2023 CIFEM, BBVA, and IPADE study, 52% of family businesses in Mexico face some degree of risk of not surviving.

Not because of the market, not because of competition, but because of accumulated internal bad practices that affect family and organizational dynamics.

Meanwhile, 79% of Mexican family businesses declare they will focus on innovation.

Innovation requires clear, fast decision-making with real authority.

And that's exactly what's missing.

Succession Deficit Only 3% of Mexican family businesses have an explicit succession plan for the CEO position, according to CFEM BBVA.

A UDLAP study of nearly 1,500 companies found that 73% have no formal succession plan at all.

Just in random order, we have with us Miriam Arick, very focused on the inference side, and, uh, she mentioned that she likes to talk about open source models.

We have Clara, and she's looking on the ethics side for BBVA, if I remember correctly.

And last but not least, we have Jeff Smith, which helps us understand how the things are happening if you want to keep your models current.

And given that at least two of them are company founders and they have a habit of changing names of the companies, I'll let them introduce and add the name of their companies.

Sure.

I am a responsible AI lead.

I lead the responsible AI initiative at BBVA.

My goal and the goal of the team is to, uh, translate, uh, responsible AI principles into AI products that we develop at the bank.

Okay.

Or, uh, BBVA, for example.

Hmm.

Or Banamex, you used to have, uh, um, an agreement with Citigroup, but you can still, uh, set up an account with them.

O sea, ¿qué se veía hace diez años? Pues esto, eh, que [chasquido de lengua] no, no se veía nada de optimismo.

De hecho, cuando yo fui a, a visitar el, el piso, era el piso que llevaba más años en venta del BBVA en España.

Nadie lo quería.

O sea, es-- era ridículo.

Y era un piso que la persona, o sea, fue un-una persona que lo compró para, para especular, básicamente, [chasquido de lengua] y lo dio en dación en pago.

Y al-- me contó el chico del BBVA que, eh, lo debía por, o sea, lo dio por una valoración que debía al banco de ciento dieciséis mil euros.

Y yo lo compré por dieciocho mil.

Él lo habría comprado en plena burbuja, seguramente, ¿no?

Issuers, fintechs, and networks that solve those operational questions could gain an advantage over products that treat stablecoins as a funding source without redesigning the surrounding credit infrastructure.

In parallel, BBVA is reported to be backing SWIFT's new global payment scheme for faster international transfers.

Bank participation matters because cross-border modernization depends less on technical demonstrations than on broad adoption across correspondent networks.

Faster messaging and settlement could reduce friction in international payments, but the competitive impact will depend on pricing, liquidity management, data standards, and how quickly banks connect their internal systems.

Just stamps, signatures, and the quiet hope that everything is in order.

I think about the banking hurdles I faced last week trying to open an account at BBVA.

They wanted proof of address, a CURP, and patience.

I have the resident card now, which helps, but the system moves at its own pace.

And I got paid a lot of money to go.

I drove over to every single BBVA bank in Alabama and I put six foot stickers on the floor.

I got my tape measure out and I was putting six foot stickers on the floor.

And I did 52 of those banks in a week.

If successful, the approach could help stablecoin card issuers scale faster, while giving Visa a role in the credit layer surrounding emerging payment rails.

BBVA has become the first Spanish bank to launch SWIFT's new global retail payment scheme.

Designed to support faster, more transparent, and 24-7 international payments for individuals and small businesses, the development highlights the continued modernization of cross-border transfers, particularly for retail and SME customers that have historically faced delays, limited tracking, and opaque pricing.

Bank participation will be critical to making the scheme useful beyond pilot deployments.