Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria

Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (BBVA) (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈbaŋko βilˈβao βiθˈkaʝa arxenˈtaɾja] is a multinational Spanish banking group. It was formed from a merger of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya and Argentaria in 1999, and is the second largest bank in Spain. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.

Credit ratings

As of March 2013 BBVA had the following debt ratings with the four major rating agencies:

Mergers and acquisitions

In February 2014, BBVA acquired Simple, a then four-year-old direct bank for 117 million. BBVA executive chairman, Francisco González, explained why banks must get with the technology program: "Some bankers and analysts think that Google, Facebook, Amazon or the like will not fully enter a highly regulated, low-margin business such as banking. I disagree. What is more, I think banks that are not prepared for such new competitors face certain death." The banking industry recognizes BBVA to be more pro-technology than many of its competitors.

Bilbao

Bilbao (/bɪlˈbaʊˌ -ˈbɑːoʊ/;Spanish: [bilˈβao]; Basque: Bilbo [bilβo]) is a municipality and city in Spain, a major city in the province of Biscay in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. It is the largest municipality of the Basque Country and the tenth largest in Spain, with a population of 353,187 in 2010. The Bilbao metropolitan area has roughly 1 million inhabitants, making it one of the most populous metropolitan areas in northern Spain; with a population of 875,552 the comarca of Greater Bilbao is the fifth-largest urban area in Spain. Bilbao is also the main urban area in what is defined as the Greater Basque region.

Bilbao is situated in the north-central part of Spain, some 16 kilometres (10 mi) south of the Bay of Biscay, where the estuary of Bilbao is formed. Its main urban core is surrounded by two small mountain ranges with an average elevation of 400 metres (1,300 ft).

After its foundation in the early 14th century by Diego López V de Haro, head of the powerful Haro family, Bilbao was a commercial hub of the Basque Country that enjoyed significant importance in Green Spain. This was due to its port activity based on the export of iron extracted from the Biscayan quarries. Throughout the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, Bilbao experienced heavy industrialisation, making it the centre of the second-most industrialised region of Spain, behind Barcelona. At the same time an extraordinary population explosion prompted the annexation of several adjacent municipalities. Nowadays, Bilbao is a vigorous service city that is experiencing an ongoing social, economic, and aesthetic revitalisation process, started by the iconic Bilbao Guggenheim Museum, and continued by infrastructure investments, such as the airport terminal, the rapid transit system, the tram line, the Alhóndiga, and the currently under development Abandoibarra and Zorrozaurre renewal projects.

Bilbao (surname)

Bilbao is a Spanish surname. Notable people with the surname include:

Bilbao (disambiguation)

Bilbao is a municipality and city in Spain.

Bilbao may also refer to: