BBVA’s game with innovation physics with UK’s Atom investment
The investment that BBVA and UK’s startup bank (that have recently got its licence and is only to start getting customers through its digital doors) is no pure fintech play — it is part of a much larger scheme to reinvent the venerable Spanish institution to a new millennial reality.
Where BBVA is no amateur in digital space and made a number of good forays in PFM, big-data analytics, offers and many more things deemed indispensable in today’s consumer world, it may have an ulterior motive to disband the old practices that would normally entrench themselves to any big corporation.
It’s foray to purchase Simple in the US, discarded as a whiff of innovation hot air by some experts, may be just a step in a grander play. Slowly changing the way bank operate in new markets by only using the digital-first instruments and processes:
- user experience design
- product experience and packaging
- internal delivery processes
- product P/L and seeking profitability via an enmeshed / integrated model, rather than siloed approach
It’s investment in Atom may be a further demostration of this strategy, where Santander and Sabadell invested in a branch-based offering that has been on the market for years and inherited both the tech and very much the soul of the business (old ways of design and delivery), BBVA is betting on business through new adopted ways that are appealing to a new generation:
- user-centered design
- speed and awareness of context
- overall integrated approach through digital channels in terms of acquisition, support and overall conduct