BBVA eyes further growth in emerging markets

Spanish banking giant BBVA is looking to increase its global market share in selected emerging markets currencies after several global FX players retreated from the non-core regions, creating growth opportunities for players with a strong local presence.

"Our idea has always been to serve our local clients with as many currencies as possible, but our global offerings have been concentrated in the major currencies plus the emerging markets where we have a big presence. Globally, and especially in the hubs, we will try to be more active with the Turkish lira. With the integration of Garanti Bank, we now have a controlling stake, and we need to have an integrated global offering for Turkey and the emerging markets in Latin America," says Antonio Ordas, head of global markets at BBVA.

This commitment to emerging markets resulted in BBVA being voted Best Bank for Emerging Latin American Currencies at the 2016 FX Week Best Bank Awards, ending Banco Santander's two-year winning streak.

Despite the retrenchment from global FX giants, investors in emerging market regions are still looking for specialists with a local presence to ride the waves with them when volatility creeps in. By BBVA's own account, those divestments and the tougher liquidity conditions facing global markets helped the bank to secure the win.

I think [volatility] has benefited the market-makers who have stayed or continued to invest in the region to be the provider for global clients
Luis Martins, BBVA

"I think [volatility] has benefited the market-makers who have stayed or continued to invest in the region to be the provider for global clients. So I think that is the space where we will have a strong opportunity to continue to grow," says Luis Martins, head of FX in Latin America at BBVA.

As clients themselves begin to run leaner operations, BBVA says it will push hard to increase its capabilities in digital banking, digital sales and the overall customer experience to meet both global and local clients' needs. To this end, the bank has already rolled out proprietary e-commerce solutions and will continue to make investments in these products.

"We will continue to put a lot of focus on the integration of a seamless offering between transactional banking products – it could be trade finance, cash management, etc – with the FX offering. Being a very strong commercial banking [firm] with a huge penetration in the corporate and small- to medium-sized enterprise space, it is the kind of solution our clients clearly demand and expect from us, and then [there's] all the cross-border opportunities and people expect [an easier] way of accessing these markets," says Martins.

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