BBVA Invests $100 Million in Financial Services Start-Ups in Silicon Valley

Following on the heels of similar investments in innovative start-ups, the bank said that it is making concerted effort to anticipate and tackle disruptive changes in financial services.

BBVA Ventures, the Silicon Valley-based venture capital arm of global financial institution BBVA, announced yesterday that it is planning to invest $100 million in start-ups focused on the financial services industry. BBVA said that it is trying to encourage more internal education and awareness of developments in technology that are inline with the bank's strategic focus. It said in a statement that it is already building ties with start-ups and other venture capital funds to find innovative groups and projects working on mobile, e-commerce, customer experience, data analytics and payments products and solutions.

"Investing in start-up companies committed to new business models enables BBVA to learn and anticipate the emerging challenges facing the financial services sector," Jay Reinemann, the executive director of BBVA Ventures, said in the statement.

The new investment in start-ups follows a previous investment by the bank in Silicon Valley firms through the start-up incubator 500 Startups Fund. Additionally the bank has put money behind ramification start-up SaveUp and Ribbit Capital which invests in early-stage technologies relevant to financial services. BBVA said in its statement that these investments are part of its strategic undertaking of leveraging new technologies to tackle changes in the financial services market.

Jonathan Camhi has been an associate editor with Bank Systems & Technology since 2012. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in New York City covering politics, health and immigration, and has a master's degree from the City University of New York's Graduate School ... View Full Bio